Are we on? >> We're good. Okay. Um, good evening, Hollist. We're call uh Is there a motion to call us to order? >> I'd like to make a motion. >> Second. >> Okay. All in favor? >> Okay. And can we Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?
>> I make a motion to approve the consent agenda. >> Second. Okay. All in favor? Um and we're going to move our executive session to the end of tonight's meeting. Um and then briefly we'll hear from our student representatives. Thank you for coming. >> Uh hello. First we wanted to start off
on a high note which is the seniors had their graduation on June 7th and it was a huge success. Uh it was a great day and it was a great success. Uh and then last Friday there was one final all school assembly with the seniors where we celebrated uh individual academic
awards. uh all the seniors and then we just got to see a video yearbook team. They made a nice video that we all got to watch. >> Uh next uh the newly implemented DSP schedule my flex learning has been a success has been working very well for students despite the initial concerns
with it. Um this week there will be whole grade assemblies. The freshman was on Wednesday, the sophomore Thursday, and the incoming seniors is tomorrow. Uh these are for students running for uh class officer positions to have an
opportunity to uh campaign. Uh next we have a upcoming intruder response drill either sometime this week or next but before the end of the school year. Uh we had senior step-up day on Wednesday where incoming seniors celebrated together with pictures and
car decorating outside. And there were book awards handed out by the school counseling office to a number of juniors that represented hard work, leadership, and academic uh success. We had 36 recipients um and 26 different colleges that uh acknowledge these students. Some
notable schools include Brown, RIT, Harvard, Adelfi, and Brandeise. And there were also awards for different subjects handed out this past week to exceptionally academic students from freshman to juniors that were decided by the teachers. And then uh most of the sport seasons
have finished up, but we still have uh track and field still going and they're going to the New England and uh we have a couple athletes competing thankfully and we're hoping for the best. And then for performing arts, we actually have something tomorrow night outside on the
field and it's where a bunch of the different groups, so like uh the concert and jazz bands, the coral groups, the detentions, and then other individual acts are going to be performing on the field and that'll be at 6:00. And it'll also be like the final kind of
performance for a lot of the seniors like Min Lee and uh Bridget Dhy who are some notable seniors that were mentioned in the Instagram. And then that is uh all the updates we have for you guys. >> Great. >> Thank you so much, Ethan and Elijah. We totally we appreciate you being here and
we're going to have a number of students coming up soon. I might ask maybe if you if you move over um a little closer to us when um the rest of the students come up so they can use that mic. You are welcome to stay as long as you'd like, but I also respect that you have finals coming up so and this is going to be a
long meeting, but thank you so much. >> Um school committee individual comment. Um Jess, >> uh yes. Um, I just wanted to let um the public know the PTO is still looking for some board members for next year. If you're interested, please reach out to
Stacy Ruffy, the PTO president. And the um Hollist High School pops concert is tomorrow um at Came Chem. I'm probably mispronouncing it. Um and the HMAP is also looking for volunteers
to help with that. >> Nothing for me. I would just like to say congratulations to the class of 2026 and a continued thank you to our teachers who are putting in their full effort as we finish up the school year sometimes in this unbearable heat at the moment. So, thank you. >> It is hot.
>> Um I'd like to echo that and also say welcome to Mr. Kim who um as of the Monday select board meeting will be was uh appointed as the our next school committee member effective July after his retirement. So, thank you for your
continued service. Um, and just echoing congratulations to the class of 2026 and thank you again to um all of our teachers and staff. I think one of the things that makes Holston really special at our graduation ceremony is when um when students pick a a teacher staff
member that hands them their diploma. Um and I I think that that's one of the many things that make us unique, but it's it's really special to see that. Great speeches, great day. So, congratulations. Um uh public comment. Do we have anyone
here for public comment? Mr. K, >> I think we also have um Alex as well. >> Okay. Thanks. >> Hey, Jess, would you grab the sheet just to see if there's any other names? Thanks. David Kim, 442 Fisk Street. Good
evening. I wanted to take a few minutes tonight to say thank you. Um, 27 years ago, I walked through the doors of the Placentino School as a firsttime assistant principal. We shared space there while the Miller School was being
completed uh that summer. I was excited, a little nervous, and I had no idea that this community would become such a significant part of my life. In January of 2003, I was given the opportunity to become the principal
of the Miller School, a role that has been a privilege uh in my life. Over the past 27 years, I have had the honor of working with many different school committee members. While the faces around the table have changed over the
years, one thing that has always remained the same, a commitment to the children and families of Holliston. I want to thank you for your support, your trust, and the confidence you placed in me as the leader of the Miller School. A principal can only be
successful because of the people around them. I have been fortunate to work with incredible teachers, dedicated staff members, support families, supportive families, and thousands of students who have brought joy and purpose to every
single day. When I look back on my career, I reme I will remember the smiles in the hallways, the excitement of the students learning something new, the relationships that were built, and the countless memories that have filled my time at Miller. The Miller School has
never just been a place where I work. It has been a second home. The friendships and relationships I have made here will stay with me forever. Thank you for allowing me to spend my entire administrative career in a community that I love. It has truly been an honor
and a blessing to serve the children, families, and staff of Holliston. I am I am excited to turn over the reigns to Brenda Morrow, who most of you know, to carry out the great work that that is going on in our schools. Thank you.
Alex. Yes. Uh hello, Alexum, uh English teacher at the here at the high school as well as the vice president of the HFT. Uh I'm going to be reading a um revised version of a letter that I sent
to school committee uh roughly a week ago. All right. Uh I'm speaking again with uh frustration regarding how the district is handling the schedule change at the high school specifically now around summer work. One of the hurdles uh that we brought up early in
negotiations when considering a shift to any drop schedule was that altering the curriculum would be no small task. Uh, every course we currently offer would have to be restructured with the altering of current lessons and creation of new units for the additional days
requiring hundreds of hours of work across all departments to be prepared in time for next year. Uh, we were told on at least seven occasions that much of this work would be done using summer hours and that the schedule change being pushed back a year uh would help to
divide up that work over two summers rather than cramming it into one. In fact, uh, this the school committee itself said in its email to the community on April 29th of 2025 that they were quote committed to working together to ensure a smooth transition
over the next year, including providing support to our valuable staff and students as they adjust to this new schedule and other curriculum changes. Then last summer came around and there were no hours available for developing lesson plans. Instead, we were told we
had to do curriculum mapping first, a frankly tedious task that is essentially useless to any experienced teacher. This was presented as a necessary step to allow us to move forward with creating units, lesson plans, and assessments, the tools that are actually helpful uh
for teachers this summer. This was not ideal, but we complied essentially building a bridge to nowhere because it now appears there is nothing on the other side. A few weeks ago, summer hours were released. Zero hours were available to prepare for the schedule
change next year. When teachers followed up with Principal List to ask why that was, we were told that there was no money available despite available summer hours for department work being referenced as recently as March 26th of this year. A group of teachers is currently scheduled to meet with the
superintendent on Monday. Uh but any effort to rectify this will have to be supported by this school committee. Uh the hours that we are asking for align with the precedent set by every other year's summer work when developing new curriculum just on a much wider scale
which the school committee and ad administration was aware would be necessary about 18 months ago. As such it is reasonable to expect that this would be planned for. So what I'm requesting tonight uh should not come as much of a surprise. Imagine having a
task that you have carefully planned to take 80 minutes. Now you have to do that same task in 17 fewer minutes. Then do that about 90 more times. That is what is happening to the current curriculum. Then you need to conjure out of
nothingness an additional four weeks worth of material that fits the themes and structures of the existing course and do that for almost every course in every department. How many hours do you think that would take? I don't know if the hope is that the teachers will bail
the district out by working for free all summer since we're the ones who will be in an uncomfortable position otherwise come the fall. But either way, it feels like it mattered more that people got their way with changing the schedule rather than ensuring that the transition would be successful. In short, the
curriculum is not close to ready for the schedule change 3 months from now, and it's the students who will suffer as a result. It is my hope that the district will reconsider the allocation of hours for this summer to give us a fighting chance at being prepared and giving the
students a successful year in 2026 27. Thank you. >> Thank you, Alex. Any other anyone else here for public comment? >> Okay. Um can I want to invite um the HDAC youth action team um
Just move your microphone towards them for now and then take it back after. Thanks. welcome and thank you so much for coming. Um, and did you want to make an introduction? >> Yeah. Um, so we are members of the youth
action team. The youth action team is sort of the like high school subsection of the Hollist Drug and Alcohol Awareness Coalition. um our coalition leaders Zoe Maro and the youth action team has existed since the beginning of last year. Um and so
this little presentation is covering um all of our big major events. We meet every Tuesday during DSB. Um and so this is like all of our big events for this school year 2025 to 2026. >> There should be presentation. What? There should be presentation.
>> Do you did you send a presentation? >> Oh um yes. Zoe sent it. >> Zoe sent it. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> I can share it with >> Yes. Can you share it? >> Thank you.
>> If you can email it to me, I can Oh, just share it. You want to email, too? You should have it, Susan. Thank you. Um, you can go to the next slide. Thank you. So, um, the youth action team as a
whole, we are made of just over 40 students that attend Holl High School, most of which being undergraduates or sorry, not undergraduates. um underassman. Um we make a positive impact in the school community state. We go to a lot
of statewide events and we do have um a national event that we'll cover later on. Um and we work develop to develop our advocacy skills um our communication skills with the community um and our leadership skills. So earlier in the year around November
9th, the youth action team went out to Stoddard Park where we did a cleanup and we also took a tally around started park of the number of beer bottles and other druglike containers. Um around Halloween time, we give um out goodie bags to students at Hollist High
School that have tools that they can use throughout the year just to manage their stress and help and know resources. So in February of this year um nine of our coalition members um attended a conference in Washington DC um to
practice leadership and advocacy. We were able to speak to um Elizabeth Warren and um Jim McGovern to advocate for funding related to um preventing substance misuse in teens.
And then around Valentine's Day, we have students um submit two people they like in the school that they want to give um a candygram to. And we will provide the candy to show these people that the students care about them.
In the spring, we sometime in March, we have enough day, which is run by the 84 movement. Um, which is a Massachusetts statewide organization led by youth fighting against tobacco and nicotine. Um, the 84 stands for when it was when
the movement was founded, 84% of youth did not use nicotine products. So it yeah just to highlight that it's more a day to celebrate um all we have achieved as youth leaders rather than you know all of everything we're
still facing. Um yeah it's annual event at the state house. Eight youth action team members attended and there is an article that you can read about it. Um, for the alcohol day at the state house, we had seven students attend and advocate for higher alcohol taxes where
we met with President's Book and Hollston was specifically chosen by BEu's media team to be following and like ask questions. And then we had our um third annual well wellness field day where students can
come down and um do the drunk driving simulator which is a big hit and they can also do many different activities. Um there was like brain trivia, there were therapy dogs just to like have a break from school and learn while also doing it.
>> Sticker shock. It's a prevention activity done nationally where you just put stickers on alcohol bottles and on the refrigerators of alcohol and it's really just to spread awareness to the community about underage drinking especially around the prom season which
is when we did it. The protective factors mural is um a mural that was designed and painted by students in the infection team. It's in Is it in the wellness area? Yep. It's by all the wellness classrooms and it
highlights protective factors, you know, positive influences in our lives that can reduce substance use. Um, mindful activities such as exercising, listening to music, going on walks, spending time with loved ones, and flowers created by the students, thumb
prints. Um, we all went down and stamped our thumbs uh to bring the whole school together and, you know, signify community. Um, five of our coalition members um filmed wellness videos that are being edited that will be shown in middle school to seventh and eighth grade
students in the wellness classes. Um, just speaking about substance misuse um amongst teens and how to basically acknowledge prevent like prevention factors and avoiding misuse.
Um we our coalition attended a number of trainings about um alcohol advocacy um and public speaking and we brought a number of training sessions to the school that um classes could attend um usually surrounding like mental health
and things around the brain. Um hi I'm Max Collins. I'm a senior in the infection team. And some things that Zoe wanted us to highlight, uh, working for the I work for the city of Framingham as a youth tobacco compliance
inspector. I've done this for about a year. Um, I go around with an adult inspector to 16 communities around Framingham um to make sure that I attempt to buy tobacco products and I make sure that they're not selling to um, minors and they're IDing people. Um, and it helps keep the community safe and
keep tobacco products out of minors hands. Um, I earlier in the year around the fall time, I submitted an official testimony for the alcohol excise tax to be raised to the state senate and I was awarded the 84 movement's 2026 youth
leadership award and that was given to me at the enough day by the 84 movement. Um so Luca Huntington was chosen to serve as the 84 statewide leadership um advoc advocate for Hollston. Um and he
is taking Max's position in our school as kind of like the president. Um and so the youth action team part like participates in a lot of um events 300 a year in general um but these are our highlights. So,
>> thank you so much. >> Thank you. Great work. And um can we take the presentation and and post it online too so people can follow read the articles? >> And if we could have the Celtics Playbook Initiative come on up. Um we
may need to grab a couple more seats. >> Yeah, let's get a few more seats here. 1 2 3 four of us, right? Let's just get one right here. chairs. >> Yeah.
Can we get the microphone? Yeah. Okay. Hi. Um, I'm Sarah. I just graduated from Hollist High School. So pretty exciting. >> I'm S. I'm a rising senior at Hollison High School. >> And we're basically just here to tell you about the work that we've been doing
at the middle school with the playbook initiative and with these lovely students here and many more that are attending today. Um so I'll give it to S to introduce kind of what the program is. Um so the playbook initiative is a
um sorry if you just want to like switch the slide. >> Oh so sorry. So, okay, Playbook is an organization that is led by Project 351, which is a youthled movement, and the Boston Celtic Shamrock Foundation, New Balance, and the Massachusetts
Association of School Superintendent. And we playbook is put into schools to help eliminate identity based discrimination, promote equity and understanding and empathy in our students. And we hope to help build their confidence as upstanders so they
feel free they can feel confident to go into their school community communities. I'm so sorry. And create change. So we have around Oh, >> sorry. We have 28 participating districts across both Massachusetts and Maine. And middle school participants
are leave being equipped with leadership skills and confidence to advocate for diversity and equity in their schools, create safe and respectful environments for people of all backgrounds and religions and ethnicities and just we really want to exemplify the necessity
necessity to stand up against injustice in the community. So it's a great program and we're very grateful to have had it running for all these years. >> So the mission is like it's a pretty big mission eliminate identity based discrimination. So in action what
playbook really looks like is every year about 20 to 30 middle middle school students are selected by the school district and these students are going to be attending three workshops that are led by high schoolers known as trainers. um trainers like me and S and Jay who
was a trainer last year. We go through a lot of workshops with project 351 and the Celtics Shamrock Foundation where we ourselves kind of learn those leadership skills that we need to make sure that we're creating a safe and comfortable space for the students and also just
like leading the workshop effectively. So within each workshop uh students are participating in a ton of different planned activities. They're all very interactive and each of these activities they kind of intertwine and work together overall to kind of promote a
greater understanding of diversity, the role it plays in our society, how it can come up in our daily life, and then also to help students kind of uh understand why it's important to promote respect for that diversity and why we should appreciate that diversity. because it's
one thing to just observe it and it's another thing another thing to kind of appreciate it and kind of promote that appreciation in others. And then um the name playbook, we kind of equip students with a playbook to help them do the right thing in instances where they
might be witnesses or maybe even victims themselves to identity based discrimination or bullying. Um and then like in sports like a playbook, it kind of just teaches you the plays. So that's kind of what the whole program is about is kind of getting students familiar with strategies that they can use to
kind of help educate those around them, do the right thing, and stand up against discrimination. So the bigger picture uh of kind of each workshop happening within a bunch of different school districts is that these school districts, they partner up. So
this year we partnered with Bedford where during our first our first workshop I think the Bedford students came over to us and then during our second one we went over to Bedford and just right away kind of meeting these students from a whole different town that maybe has like a different
demographic has a whole different kind of community. It kind of gets the students a little bit uncomfortable at first and getting kind of used to adjusting to meeting people with differences to them and talking about those differences and understanding how they kind of make us stronger. Um
because you're hearing all these different perspectives that you might have not thought of just even being from a different town as someone else. And then each workshop it builds on the next and also it takes from the last. So over time as the three workshops go on, the
students, they get really familiar with the kind of lessons and the kind of growth that they're going to be doing during their time with the playbook initiative. And they also just get a lot more comfortable with their peers and with talking about subjects that they aren't really used to talking about like race, sexual orientation, gender,
religion, etc. Um, and then finally, we end our three workshops with the playbook day of action. And this is like a really special day where students they kind of think about how they can spread all the stuff that they've learned in playbook to their entire community. So
this year on March 19th, we had students go into sixth grade home rooms. They went in pairs and they kind of facilitated their own little mini playbook workshops during Rams Block, which I'm so proud of them still because that's such a like impressive thing to do, especially at that age when you're
like shy. So it was just incredible that they did that. I'm so proud of them. So just like to give an example of what a workshop might look like. I think this is the agenda from our first workshop. We started with doing kind of personal introductions and telling the students what playbook is all about. You know,
like why are they here? Um and then we jumped right away into an icebreaker called the F game. So, for those of you who don't know, the F game is essentially um you're handed a strip of paper and everyone's paper has the same sentence on it and they're not allowed to tell anyone else what their sentence
says and they're asked to quietly count the number of Fs that they see on the paper and then move to the side of the room that corresponds to how many Fs they counted. And a lot of times what happens is very few people end up counting the Fs, right? Because they'll miss like an F in
the word like of or something. And as you go around the room and people kind of talk about like, "Oh, well maybe you missed this word or maybe you missed this word." The students we do like a little debrief at the end and they come to kind of understand that this kind of symbolizes like you really do need to listen to what the people around you are
saying. And there's so much to be gained from just like listening to the people around you. And even when you think someone is wrong, you're like, "How did he even count seven Fs? There's not even seven Fs on there." You really have to like take that into consideration because you never know. Um, and there's
so much to be learned by other people. So, after that, we have um Oh, I'm so sorry. >> I went on fast. >> We have the students kind of introduce themselves and introduce their definition of leadership because that's kind of a big part of playbook is becoming a leader and being a leader
against discrimination. So, that was really helpful in kind of getting the kids to think that this was really like this workshop is really going to help them build those skills. And then we do our favorite activity. My favorite activity is agree, disagree, unsure
where we give the students a statement that's kind of purposely vague and it's usually not something they're used to really talking about. So I think our first prompt is like it's a choice to be a leader. And then the second one is like there's is a such thing as acting
white or acting black. And a lot of students are like surprised when you they hear that because you're not really used to talking about those things or maybe even forming an opinion on them. So the students go to the side of the room that they corres uh their opinion corresponds with and then they just basically talk it out. We have students
from each side of the room respectfully give their opinion and why they believe it. And then oftent times we even have students like moving around the room as they change their opinion which I think is great. You like stop them while they're moving and you ask them like why'd you change your mind? It's just incredible. Um and then we watch a quick
little video and we jump into scenario discussions. So we trainers were given a lot of resources by project 351 and the Shamrock Foundation. And one of these resources that's really important is this kind of book of scenarios created
by middle schoolers just like our students. So these middle schoolers, they have created scenarios in which identity based discrimination happens in a setting that these students might see it happen. So for registatives on social media or kind of like casually in a classroom, something like that that's a
little bit more hits closer to home for these students. Each scenario, it has discussion questions and intervention options. And we get these students in small groups and they kind of go through each of those questions and each of those intervention options. And this kind of prepares them for what they
might want to do or think about if they see these scenarios play out in real life. And then finally, we talked to them about Kaizen, which is a big theme of the playbook initiative. Kaizen is the Japanese word for continuous self-improvement. And that's just such a
huge part of playbook because it's not about exactly, you know, it's not possible to be perfect. But as long as you're improving every single day and you're willing to kind of take those steps to grow, that's really what we want to emphasize with these students.
Even in activities like agree, disagree, unsure, when you're just like becoming more open to changing your mind and hearing what others have to say. It's just this constant improvement throughout each of the workshops. And I think it really just shows in every single activity of these workshops.
>> So what we are doing today is the third step of our playbook initiative for the 2025 2026 season, which is our unity plan. And this could really be seen as the most important part because it's where we share what we both as trainers and students learn from the experience
with the community so we can really talk about why it's so important to continue this program and how we are aiming to improve more in the future constantly and continuously. So to do this we actually send a survey out to all of our student participants and we ask them a
couple of questions about the workshop. Why do they think it's important? What was their favorite part? and what do we want to tell our community about it? So, we have a lovely four repres representatives with us. Um, we'll be speaking on behalf of Anna tonight because she wasn't able to make it. So,
we have Zed, Ruby, Julia, and Alex. And we're very excited to just have them talk a little bit about their experience with Playbook because they're the heart of the program, not us. So, we're going to give it over to them. Next slide, please.
Okay. Hello, my name is Zed. I think the playbook initiative is important because it teaches the younger generation how people are being treated unfairly due to their identities and different perspectives. Hi, my name's Julia and I think the
playbook initiative is important because it like teaches you how to be more open-minded. Like it challenges you to think about real world scenarios of discrimination. It teaches people when and how to be an upstander and how to take in others opinions and like to be
open to even changing your own. I will read on behalf of Anna. So when we the question is how do you feel being part of the playbook initiative impacted you? Anna said that she felt that being part of playbook taught her how to respectfully disagree with others and try to hear things from their
perspective. Hi, my name is Alex. My favorite part of the workshops was agree, disagree, unsure. I love this activity because it taught me to listen to others opinions as well as the context behind it before forming my own. And it really just
helped me to be more open-minded to new perspectives as well as the experiences that might have shaped them. Hi, my name is Ruby. Um, I think the the our community should know that the playbook initiative is an important part of middle school learning. It shows that there are other ways to show
intelligence through choices and how important our voices are. The playbook initiative helps middle school students find their own voices and illustrates how much they matter in real world real world scenarios. The playbook helps students realize that there are many other things we need to learn about the
real world and how there's more than one right answer to situations. Having opinions is important, but learning to accept other opinions that may differ from your own is much more crucial. The world is not a math problem. There isn't just one correct answer. And being part of the playbook initiative has
helped show us this. Okay. So, we have two prongs of our unity plan. The first is simply having students participate in these workshops that we lead and help them gain the skills that they will need to then lead their own mini workshops in the schools.
And as we said earlier on March 19th, we had almost every single one of our participants lead a workshop with either with a partner or by themselves. And it was a wonderful experience and they got to spread their impact and what they took from it with younger kids. So hopefully, you know, creating a ripple
for change in our community as much as we can. And we're really really proud of them. I was I got to be there to just witness what was happening. And they were so kind and empathetic and thoughtful. and I'm so happy to have had the chance to work with them this year.
>> Thank you so much. And we're so grateful to see the playbook initiative continue to grow under your support. Thank you. >> Great job, guys. You did so great. If you people are interested in their arts and to share this really important work with us, too. >> Appreciate it. Of course. Thank you so
much. >> One comment. Um I don't know how many years it's been now s I think when I volunteer or asked you is it four or five years I would >> um I think it's been five because yes about five years ago we appi I
applied for this program and um Sarah willingly took um and ran with it and she's done a great job as one of the leaders of the program. Jay Patel is one of our former UK initiative people and it's amazing the growth I've seen in these students from in the years. Um Jay
is a testament to that and and you people there as well tonight. I've seen you grow through the years as well. So I'm so glad we had the opportunity to do this work. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you so much. >> Thank you. Um we are we are close to doing our reorganization, but before we did that,
um we we wanted to honor some of the retirements and the folks that are going to be leaving. Um and so I I guess I would ask um each one of you have prepared something. Um and maybe maybe it makes sense. Jess, should we can we
start with you? >> Um yeah, sure. Um, I just wanted to um thank uh Dr. Paldo for supporting the district um this last year. I know I'm very new and you're relatively new as well. Um, and our time working together
was short, but um you have really helped us grow and I am very much um grateful for all that you've put into it. Thank you. >> Thank you. It's been an honor. I will be uh honoring Dr. Joanne Manard
who is not here today. Um but I have a a short note to read um just to thank her for her contributions to this district. As we recognize and celebrate the contributions of Dr. Joe Hamard, our assistant superintendent for curriculum instruction, is important to acknowledge not only the tremendous work she has
accomplished during her tenure, but also the strong foundation that she established for the future of this district. Throughout her leadership, she has remained focused on improving teaching and learning for all students. Under her guidance, the district undertook a comprehensive revision of curriculum maps to ensure greater
alignment, coherence, and consistency across grade levels and content areas. She's also expanded tools available to educators by bringing in resources such as I Ready EXL, providing teachers with valuable data and insights to better monitor student progress and respond to
individual learning needs. Perhaps most notably, she spearheaded a robust curriculum review process that resulted in adoption of new math and literacy curriculum and the launch of a comprehensive science curriculum review. That is a lot of curriculum reviews. with a commitment to ensuring that every
student has access to highquality instructional materials that reflect reflect diverse uh perspectives provide meaningful accommodations and supports for our diverse learners. Dr. Manar has equipped teachers with resources and training they need to deliver engaging and effective instruction. As she
transitions from her role, she leaves Hollist public schools strong, positioning the district for a successful transition by ensuring that this work is well established and supporting our principles and teacher leaders who will carry it forward. We are grateful for her leadership, dedication, and unwavering commitment to
educational excellence. Her impact on our schools will be lasting and we wish her continued success as the next superintendent of East Long Meadow Public Schools. Congratulations, Dr. Manard. ALL RIGHT. SO, I HAVE the privilege of
honoring Dr. Kuska and I apologize. I'm kind of funny angle to look at you. Um, Dr. Kusca, thank you for your six years of service to Hollist public schools. Your career did not start here in Hollist, but started in elementary special education, as my son says, back in the olden 90s. Uh, from there, your
journey brought you to various stages of classrooms and schools, spanning years of service, ultimately leading you to Holliston leadership. You came in during the start of the COVID pandemic to a school system in a world being rocked in ways that had never been seen before. And yet with your help, the district administration navigated a way forward
that still allowed our schools to not only be open, but to function at a continued high level. Under your leadership, our middle school was identified as a national blue ribbon school for outstanding achievements. Our French immersion program was also nationally recognized. Our high school starting a new more equitable schedule and full day kindergarten finally became
tuition free. You accomplished all of this and so much more that I did not have time to list. all the while handling all the many unseen small and large challenges faced by a superintendent on a daily basis. I was moved by your words this past Sunday morning at graduation when you discussed
the path that leads us in directions that we never saw coming and the idea of reflection on what we would all tell our 18-year-old selves looking back. I hope your reflection includes a look at the thousands of students and families whose lives you have impacted over the years, not just here in Hollist, but across the
many districts whom you have served. I know all educators have a student or two whose name and faces will forever be ingrained in our minds and our hearts. Those names and faces exist to remind us that this job matters. Your job matters and the decisions and paths you chose were always with those children in mind.
I hope you look back in reflection to all the students and teachers whose paths you have helped direct but also forward into it in anticipation for all the great things still on your path ahead of you. Thank you for sharing with the town of Hollist the final years of your career and sharing with us your decades of experience. We wish you the
best in your retirement and hope you get to spend more time with your own family, particularly your special grandbabies. On behalf of my colleagues here in the town of Hollist, I thank you for your service to Hollon Public Schools. For 27 years, Mr. Kim has dedicated himself to the students, families, and
staff of Hollston. 23 years as the Miller school principal. While his accomplishments are many, perhaps his greatest gift has been his unwavering belief that students learn best when they feel they belong. Throughout his tenure, he's worked tirelessly to create a school where every child felt
welcomed, valued, and celebrated. Whether through his leadership of PBIS initiatives, greeting students with music on Friday mornings, showing up in costume to bring joy and excitement to the school day, or simply taking the time to know students by name. Mr. Kim cultivated a school community where
children were eager to walk through the doors each morning. Over the past several weeks, families, former students, and colleagues have shared countless memories of Mr. Kim. They've recalled Friday morning music, chess clubs, dunk tanks, school events, and the many traditions that made Miller
such a special place. Yet, beyond the stories and traditions, a common theme emerged in every reflection. Mr. Kim's kindness, generosity, and unwavering dedication to the children of Hollist. The memories shared speak not only to the experiences he created, but to the
way he made people feel. Students felt seen, families felt welcomed, staff felt supported. His presence brought joy and a sense of community that extended far beyond the walls of the school. The true measure of a school leader is not found in programs or initiatives alone, but in
the lasting impact they may have on the lives of others. By that measure, Mr. Kim's legacy is remarkable. Generations of students have benefited from his care, leadership, and belief in the importance of creating a school where every child knows they belong. And true to his commitment to the children of
Hollston, Mr. Kim has volunteered to continue serving as a member of the school committee starting this July. On behalf of the Hollston public schools and broader community, we extend our deepest gratitude for your 27 years of dedicated service. Thank you.
Dr. Jordan. We recognize an extraordinary educator and leader, Dr. David Jordan, as he concludes his service to Hollston public schools and begins a new chapter with Welsley Public Schools. While we are excited for his next opportunity, we would be remiss if we did not take time to reflect on the
remarkable impact Dr. Jordan has had on our schools, our students, and our community. Over the course of 19 years in education, including 13 years serving the Hollist public schools, Dr. Jordan has distinguished himself as a dedicated educator and respected administrator.
During his time in Hollist, he served as vice principal and principal of Robert Adams Middle School before taking on the role of assistant superintendent of finance and operations. In each position, he brought thoughtful leadership, a commitment to excellence, and a steadfast focus on what is best
for students. As principal of Robert Adams Middle School, Dr. Jordan helped foster a culture of achievement, collaboration, belonging, and continuous improvement. His leadership helped shape a school environment where students were challenged to succeed, and educators
were empowered to innovate. A distinguished accomplishment for the Rob Robert Adams Middle School occurred in 2024 when the school was recognized by the US Department of Education as a national blue ribbon school and designated an exemplary high-erforming
school. This prestigious honor is awarded to schools that demonstrate outstanding academic achievement and a commitment to educational excellence. While no single person earned such a distinction alone, this chie achievement was built upon years of strong leadership, vision, and dedication. Um,
David's commitment to high standards, student growth, and a positive school culture helped position Robert Adams Middle School for this remarkable award. David also initiated one-on-one devices at Rams and brought the uh mission of personal, local, global to Rams,
connecting curriculum with real world learning and service, which is embedded in our vision of a graduate. In his most recent role as assistant superintendent of finance and operations, Dr. Jordan continued to make an impact behind the scenes, ensuring that the district's resources, facilities, and operations
effectively supported teaching and learning. Beyond his accomplishments, those who have worked with Dr. Jordan know him as a leader of integrity and a steady presence during times of challenge and change, always approaching his work with professionalism, respect, and a collaborative spirit. As Dr.
Jordan prepares to bring his talents and experience to Welsley Public Schools, we offer our gratitude for all he has contributed to Hollston over the past 13 years. Dr. Jordan, thank you for your leadership and your unwavering commitment to students. We are grateful for everything you have done for Holl
public schools and we wish you every success in the years ahead. >> Okay. >> Can I take a minute to read these? >> Yes. Yes. >> So, in addition to the administrators that you recognize tonight, thank you very much. We have other retirements happening this year and we'll be
celebrating them on June 22nd. and I hope some of you might be able to make it as well as our administrators and some of our staff. So at Placentino, Marylu Radcliffe is is retiring after 19 years and Karen Rudden after 11 years. At Miller, Maren Hagen is being
recognized after 18 years and Missy Jordan after nine years. Mr. Kim, we've said so eloquently 27 long years here, but thank you for that. Wendy Krauss, 21 years. Kathy Reed 26 years. Christine Scott, 20 years. And then at our middle
school, Moren Coyle, 20 years. Kelly Garnum, 25 years. De Manini, 25 years. At our high school, Sylvia Bodmmer, 33 years. Heidi Finnegan, 33 years. That's amazing. Uh Betsy Castanzo, 5 years. And then, of course, myself after six years
in Hollist. So, thank you to all of those. And we will um have something nice for them on June 22nd as well. Okay. Um, it's time to do our reorganization. So, I, you know, again, um, I sent out a sheet just for you to
express interest. Um, and we kind of need to go through this and and, um, uh, figure out which position um, you know, maybe multiple members have expressed interest in and and talk this through. Um, where would the committee
like to start? >> Are there any motions to appoint for chair? >> I'd like to recommend and make a motion um to appoint uh Frank as chair. >> I would second that.
>> Um Frank, do you want to uh discuss? >> I uh accept a nomination. >> Okay. So, let's take a quick vote. Um on the motion to approve Frank as chair. Sorry about that. Okay. Um you're now
chair so you you run the reorganization. >> You couldn't just finish it. >> Go easy on me, guys. Okay. Thank you. >> All right. Position of vice chair.
>> I'd like to Oh, go ahead. Sorry. No, go ahead. >> I'd like to make a motion uh to appoint Don as vice chair. Second. I would accept that >> roll. Oh, vote. >> All right. So, for subcommittees, we
should do chairs first or chair and then members or >> um I I would recommend we we figure out who the members are and then ask if anyone wants to >> chair on that. >> All right. So for budget any >> the the one thing I I would want to talk
about in terms of our subcommittees um and I this this stands for the vice chair spot as well. We have two new members coming on. I think that we should we have some work to get done um before uh July uh when we have the two new members. But I think we should be
open to um to changing up positions um and get their input as well. Right. for getting through the next month. Let's get these. >> So, we're voting on the next month and then once July starts, there might be some >> I think I think maybe the chair should
talk to them and see if they have an in sort of find out where their interest lies. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> Jess, you want to grab the microphone so they can >> um Thank you. >> So, for the subcommittee of budget, >> do I have any nominations?
So this just for the chair of the sub committee >> just we're going to do the members first and then we will decide on chairs. >> I'm open to joining budget now. Um however I I would like to talk with the two new members once they get on and see
if they want to take that spot. But I'll see it through for the next month and then um if they have an interest in taking that spot. Thank you. >> Um thank you. >> I'll jump off. >> Okay. Did you make your own motion? Um, so for that reason, I don't want to be chair, but I'm I'm happy to um Okay. to.
So, no, I'll I'll let somebody else make a motion, but we should probably express interest and then make one motion um to appoint those three people. >> I would be interested in joining budget
>> for um continuity for budget um with Don expressing potentially moving on uh after July. Um I will I express interest in budget as well. Great. Okay. I make a motion to appoint Hillary, Don, and Frank budget. But before I do that, do
we have a chair for the budget? >> I will volunteer as chair. >> I nominate Hillary. >> Okay. >> I can't nominate. >> No. I I make a motion to appoint Hillary, Don, and Frank onto the budget subcommittee with Hillary as chair.
>> Okay. Second. All right. Vote. Okay. policy following the same process. Um, who is interested in policy? >> I'm interested in remaining on policy. Um, I think again for the sake of continuity, we've got a number of things
in work that would be great to have some um, continuity. >> I would also be interested in policy. >> Um, I'd be interested, but also open if one of our two members wants to come on later. I I'd be happy to switch with them later, but I'm going to stay with
policy for now. And is anyone interested in chair? >> I can do you want to do Tracy? >> Um I No. >> Um Jess, would you be chair if you're on policy with Tracy and Hillary? Um and
Hillary is taking on budget chair and um I think Tracy's expressed an interest in superintendent chair. just about. >> So that's where I was going to that was going to be my next question. Um I'm currently the only one I'm jumping ahead a bit on communications and I would be
interested in chair there. >> I could share policy and budget. That's >> I but that that's where I was kind of going. Can I mean and >> can I be chair of two different subcommittees? I don't believe there's any rule saying you can't but um
certainly just you know we are >> we are considering reorganiz reorganizing with about a third of our uh committee missing. So I think as we think about the subcommittee roles, we have to fill them, but I think we need to come back in July once the
the second with David starts and we have the second role signed to really identify where their interests lie and and potentially do a I want to say semi-reorganization, but a reorganization of the subcommittees as it stands. Um so I think for now, Jess,
um there is no bylaw to my knowledge that says you can't. So I realize it might be for a month during a summer period. So, it shouldn't be too crazy. >> Okay. All right. That's fine. >> All right. Did Hillary, you just said you'd continue on with the chair until we reordered in July?
>> Fine with with either one. So, >> so that's a great question. >> For continuity, does it make sense to just keep it for the next month and then if nothing shakes out, then you and I can figure out. >> Okay. Okay. Sounds good. So, I'll make a
motion to nominate Hillary as chair of policy with Tracy and Jess as second and third members. >> Second. >> Okay. Oh, awesome. All right, Superintendent Eval. Um,
>> anybody express interest? >> I have an interest in that. Um, because we don't start right away, I also think we could we don't necessarily have to fill this committee yet. >> That is fair, right? I I do expect the policy and budget will probably need to meet in the next month. Um so it feels
fair to fill those but I don't it's not as pressing for superintendent eval in my opinion. >> That's fair. >> So is that Don expressing interest? >> It is. I'm I don't know. >> I am also interested in Superintendent Ebal.
>> Okay. Are either of you interested in chair? >> I would be willing to chair that. Okay. I would make a motion to appoint Don and Tracy to Superintendent Eval with Tracy as the chair. >> Second. >> Okay. >> All right. Communications.
Who is interested? >> I'm interested in communications. Great. >> Awesome. Jess, uh, anyone else? >> We will likely have a communication in the next month. So, I think we probably need to put two or three people and then be ready to to um
>> Yeah, at least one other um >> So, Hillary, you are on >> Yeah, I can help out with that one. Um I know I had also expressed interest in possibly being in negotiations as well, but I know that's a little bit later. So, in the interim here for the few weeks, I can certainly um help out in
communications. >> Okay. >> Okay. A motion to appoint um uh Tracy and just to communications >> with just >> justice chair. >> Just as chair >> second. >> Okay. Vote.
>> All right. Negotiations big year. Um anybody have interest in negotiations? >> Are you interested, Tracy? >> I put a question mark there. Um possibly. I this is a new experience for me on the side of the table for sure,
but um I would I'd be willing to be a part of it for sure. >> Okay. I I I will join negotiations again. Um unless someone has a strong desire to do it instead.
>> Is the chair automatically on it? >> The chair is not necessarily automatically on it. Okay. I can do negotiations. >> I think well yeah with with all five of these subcommittees when we come back in
July and where the interests of the the new members are I think we'll have to come back and reorganize those anyway. So >> yes for now >> this is why we have seven not trust um if we had five this would be a
nightmare. Um so okay now >> so a motion to appoint Hillary Dawn and um Tracy for the negotiations >> second. >> Okay vote sorry. All right, liaison.
Um, typically we have two per um organization. Um, but obviously with two two seats still yet to be seated. Um, we may be sparse in a few and some that we might have actually a lot of interest. Um, so starting with PTO,
>> can I ask a question? Sorry to interrupt. Um, >> do we think the leaison any of these are time um sensitive that we couldn't wait until July to do all of them? I just found a lot of these groups are sort of going into hibernation right now. >> Actually, that's totally fair because
less potentially to have to reorganize, >> right, if we just wait until MSB the only one. Yeah. >> Yeah. MSBA is probably the one that is the most needed at this point. >> Um, do we have to make a motion to hold off or
>> um, no, we don't have to appoint yet. We don't have to. I I think we've discussed it and we can just decide to wait. No one's making a motion to appoint anyone to as liaison other than MSBA, right? >> Yes. >> Okay.
>> All right. Does anybody have nominations for MSBA? Everyone's clamoring on this one. So, >> so I had a question about that. Is that is not the stu is that the representative on the building committee we're talking about here or is this the leaison to just the
>> building committee? Yeah, the school committee liaison/app appointee for the building committee. >> So there's only one then school. >> There is two appointments we'll be making potentially tonight. Um but there's also one school school committee member
>> and that's what this is. So whereas all the other liaison we usually have two members of MSBA we're only that makes sense. >> Frank you expressed interest. Is that still something you're interested in even though you're taking on chair too? You feel like
>> Yes. continuity. Um something that's important to me and >> Okay. I would make a motion to appoint Frank as the MSBA that >> Okay. >> All right. I think we're we're good for tonight.
Appreciate everyone's willingness and we obviously have more to fill. Um I think we can move up. We did want to move up the SBC. >> Okay. How soon are you doing that now? >> Time is up. We are at 8:01. Actually,
just in time. Presentations are up next or do we want to do quickly the personnel and finish that? >> Uh, which part? I'm sorry. >> Part B cuz we did the retirements. >> Uh, no, let's let's get the present. I would get the presentations. >> Can we start with the medium science? Yeah.
>> The only challenge presentations that will be long. What do do people have a time frame for MSB? >> Why don't we do this for the fairness of the folks that came for SBC? They could do their statements now and then we can separate it and have the discussion
after the presentations. Does that make sense to everyone? Okay. >> Y >> So I believe we have six either statements or folks that are here and we'll pull those names up. So, anyone that's here for the MSBA to
make a statement, you should >> feel free to come on up. >> I think we have one on Zoom as well. >> Yeah, Jamaica could go first cuz he has his solo parenting. >> Okay.
>> Jama, are you uh can you hear us? >> I can, but I didn't go. >> Okay. Why don't we So, I believe we have three here. Or do we have we have Lynn's statement we'll be reading? We could read that last. Is there any other statements that came in? Any others?
>> Jamie Katone's statement. >> Okay. There any others? There were six. >> Um I think that's uh I will double check. >> Okay. Why don't we start with the folks in the room? So um if you could introduce yourself and I believe your
address. Um and then we'll Jamaica can go on Zoom and then we'll read the statements that were provided to us. My name is Vanessa Connors and I live at 657 Congress Street. Good evening and thank you for the invitation to speak tonight. I'm so incredibly excited about
the MSBA building project for Hollist High School. My two children are in third grade and kindergarten as a part of the French immersion program. The educational pathways of the Holliston schools is part of what drew my husband and me to move here in 2021 as my son was in preschool and we were looking
forward to where we'd be for the next 10 plus years. There's a rich tradition of educational excellence in Hollist which we have experienced firsthand over the past four years. As I heard about Hollist's application for the MSBA new or renovated building project, I was so
excited because I know firsthand what a new building project looks like. Currently I am finishing my 14th school year six more days as an educator in the world language department at Waltham High School. The new Waltham High School opened last school year August 2024
after a very long MSBA process that is fairly involved in. We were accepted into the feasibility study in fall 2015 which we kicked off with a faculty meeting where we discussed our 2020 vision for the new high school. This led to many surveys and interviews which I
was invited to attend. As a member of the world language department, I had piloted onetoone classroom devices and was asked to give my input for the technology needs of the building. This was way before students even had devices and I had an iPad cart.
Um, being asked to be on this panel as a newer teacher, really a secondyear teacher was daunting, but it felt really empowering knowing that I would be helping to shape our new school. In fall 2016, we received the first concept of our new building from SMMA, which was
our architectural and engineering firm. To be concise, it was overwhelming and long. I thought, how are they going to build this in 5 years? As you've probably figured out, it took longer than 5 years. WAM High School was officially accepted into the schematic
design phase of the new building in 2019. After much discussion about where to actually put the new building, Waltham did not have much open space to place a 414,854 square ft building for a comprehensive
program high school with 14 chapter 74 CTE programs. So each location that was available needed to be deeply considered for its maximum efficacy and minimal disruption to the current schools during construction. For example, one of the options was in face of the old high
school, but that construction would have affected us. It would have affected the middle school that was next door. So, we quickly eliminated that. Finally, land was acquired and a groundbreaking was scheduled for 2020. Then, CO happened. During the spring of 2020, I was invited
to some Zoom meetings with SMMA about teacher furniture and specific spaces needs for the world language department as we were going to have a language lab. Later on, I was also involved in helping the design team with the decor of the high school to make sure that all cultures of our students were
represented and they felt welcome and included in our school building. As the new building opening came closer, content departments met with SMMA again to discuss the durable good needs we had, not consumables, but specifics, our furniture, the layout. I showed them my
chairs that were old and needed replacing and what they should or should not buy. Being able to help with these needs for our building really gave me a sense of ownership and pride in the new building. Finally, we opened last year and it's been wonderful. Though, there
are some considerations that you don't really know until you have been in a building for some time and think, "Oh, I would change this." Like the size of our classroom trash cans. They're really small. They're not good for high school. I promise you. I believe I have a unique perspective that will aid the school building committee as I have lived the
positives and the challenges of moving into and being in a new building in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The possibility of being not able to help with the process of a new building in my community where not only my children but all future Holliston students will attend the school gives me the same
feeling of hope and enthusiasm as I had way back at the very first meeting I attended with SMMA. Thank you for your consideration in this very important role. Thank you, Vanessa. >> Good evening. Uh my name is Andrew Canine, 245 Conquered Street. Uh I had
submitted my name uh under the architect role with MSB Experience. Uh I am an architect, registered architect in Massachusetts and Virginia with 20 years of experience. Um I do all public work in the state of
Massachusetts and six two years ago for six years I worked in K to2 education projects uh with the MSBA program working on all buildings from K to 12 with my last project being the Watertown High School project which is a pretty
high um notable project um first in the nation to be net zero and lead platinum. So uh pretty remarkable uh project there. Um so I'm familiar with the architecture process. I'm familiar with
chapter 149 and 149A processes for deliverables of the construction. I'm familiar with meeting with teachers and programming, understanding how MSBA is going to have funding limits to different program areas and what they'll
be looking for and how they'll challenge us to provide the school that they will fund and they will challenge us as a community and as a community we'll also need to develop a plan that the community will support. Right? So, it's a double-edged sword there. So I'm
familiar with all those processes beyond the architecture experience um that I have. Um I also have two children in the Hollison schools. Uh one will probably graduate before this is finished with design. The other will probably be directly impacted by the construction.
So I have that um perspective in mind as well. Uh so I appreciate the opportunity to um present to you. Um I look forward for the opportunity to um create the future of Hollist High School. Thank you, Andrew.
>> Should I read um Lynn's submission? >> Um maybe Jim and Jamie because they're on and then we >> Sure. >> Jaya, is this a good Okay. >> Can you hear me? >> Yes. >> All right. Awesome. Thanks. Um I
apologize. I'm not there in person. Um there was a communication with that. I just uh heard about this 6 hours ago also. Um here I am. Um um mine is not a prepared statement. I'm just going to go talk. I just jotted down a couple of things as I was
thinking about why I wanted to uh be in the room when this was being discussed. Um >> Jim, are you able to share your um just name and address? Sorry. To start off with, >> sorry. >> Name and address. >> Sorry. Name and address.
>> Sorry. I will be at 425 Underwood Street um um sorry I guess I should have started with that. Um yeah um where was I? I'll go back to the beginning. Um apologies for my um ad hoc
presentation. Um there was a communication misunderstanding. So um I didn't know this was happening today until 6 hours ago. So here I am. I'm just going to read off of a few things I jotted on a piece of paper. So apologies for any um you know congruence issues
with the with the continuity of thoughts. Um when I was thinking about why I want to be in the room when this was being discussed um um I landed on uh one key thing which is um I think I can bring uh multiple personas and expertise
uh across the complex process that we're engage going to be engaged in as far as uh um development getting approval as well as um execution on the building strategy with the coordination um realization of a modern um leading
edge inclusive state high school uh building. Um some of the personalities I would represent is a parent, my son is in Miller Elementary in the country. Um and I'm also an EDC member. So, I'm intimately familiar uh with the town and
um its um um its benefits, advantages as well as uh gaps and um challenges um as far as budgets and um other um systemic uh challenges that we um endure both at uh the municipal level as well as at the
state level. Um in my day job I am a senior leader focused on uh um artificial intelligence and machine learning product strategy for um healthcare um industry right now. Uh but in the past I um my uh uh background is
in engineering. So um I come from an electronics and communication engineering background. So um engineer as a professional but now I'm focused on uh product strategy. Um in addition, I'm also a small midsize business owner um
focused on um real estate development across multiple states um Colorado, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Texas. Um both across the residential and commercial properties. Um we started uh
I started with um one property one unit um and um at its most we were at uh 50 plus units and um right now we're running at like 30ish 30 odd um units both across again commercial and
residential units. Um as part of this I've worked with uh both uh municipal governments at the county levels as well as at the um state levels um across both commercial and residential uh building
codes and uh processes and um all of the complexities associated with that. Um and also in my day job um I was the accountable leader um to set up a CAP clea certified lab. Um um it's basically
uh those are certifications that a lab that does um um chemistry and biology related testing um on um um various um use cases. Um they need to be certified before you can run human um tests
through those labs. Um so this was specifically for genomic analysis. Uh we thought building codes and complexities associated with school building are complex. Um we should chat offline uh what kind of complexities are involved in uh there's human testing and patient
care um involved at a individual personalized level from the genomic analysis perspective. Uh this lab um provides services to uh various multinational companies like Fiser, Astroenica, Zench um etc. So um I have
experience working with uh regulatory authorities and compliance um authorities um at both um state as well as uh national level not only within the US but also um across Europe and and Asia. So um in comprehensive
that's that's my background. So I think um I'm bring a lot of experience uh based on that. Um and most importantly I mean like uh I am invested in the town of Palestine right like so I'm part of the ADC and I'm part of
the variety of organizations across uh the town. Um and I'm here uh I want to make it work for for the town as well. I want to provide all the services I can to make the town and this school as um
great as it should be. U thank you for your time. Uh I appreciate uh your time and listening to what I have to say and uh you know I don't make the cut. Um I'm happy to um in any other any other way possible. Thank you.
>> Thank you Chinmaya. Jamie I wonder if people can Jamie can you hear us there? >> Hi there. I think you're saying Jamie. Is that correct? >> Yes. Sorry the mics and the zoom are little. >> All good. Uh, are can you hear me? Okay.
>> Yes. >> Great. Thank you. Uh, good evening. Uh, my name is Jamie Kon. I do have a few words prepared here tonight. I think I got a little bit more of a heads up than my um, so give me a little chance to put some things together, but I do apologize for not being there in person. It is my
preference to be there in person, but tonight it just was not possible. Um, so my name is Jamie Kone. I am a Hollist High School biology teacher, union president, and a Hollist resident. I have two children in Hollist schools, one in fourth grade and another in sixth
grade. I also volunteer in youth sports in town. As someone who is deeply invested in our town's future, I'm here tonight to express my strong commitment to serving on the school building committee. My perspective is uniquely shaped by both my professional and
personal ties to this community. As a veteran high school biology teacher, I have an intimate understanding of our current high school programming and its daily operational constraints. Furthermore, having taught in several different school buildings over my career, including one that underwent the
complete MSBA new build process, I offer a rare dual perspective. I understand the granular day-to-day functional requirements of a modern high school, but I also understand the logistical and administrative complexities that come with an MSBA project.
For the past nine years, I've had the privilege of serving as the HFT president, our local union, to our teachers, paraprofessionals, secretaries, and nurses. And I believe my longevity in this leadership role is a testament to the trust my colleagues place in me to listen to their needs and
advocate effectively for both teachers and students. In this role, I've proven have a proven track record of bringing people together for the greater good of our schools. And I'm uniquely positioned to provide the committee with quick direct access to essential staff and
student input. Lastly, and most importantly, as a homeowner, I want to emphasize that my top priority on this committee will be to balance the educational needs of a 21st century high school with strict financial prudence. Acknowledging and respecting the tax
burden our residents is, excuse me, acknowledging and respecting the tax burden on our residents is a significant responsibility and I do not take it lightly. I'm here to ensure we will build a school that is logistically efficient, educationally sound, and
fiscally responsible for the entire Holling community long into the future. I thank you for your time today and for your consideration. >> Thank you, Jamie. >> Thank you. Lind your Lynn and
>> I can read on behalf of um Lynn Hoffman Bratuchi to the members of the Holston School Committee. I would very much like to be considered for service on the school building committee as a Hollist resident for more than 30 years with four children who went through the Holl public schools and now grandchildren
currently in the system. I feel deeply invested in the future of our schools in our community. Over the years, I have served on a superintendent search committee, participated on school councils, volunteered within the school community, including obtaining a grant for women's history month program and
materials, coming to classrooms with science enrichment experiments and lessons, serving as intern JV soccer coach during a coaching transition, among other things. During my children's school years, I was also a resident and parent during the town's previous school building discussions and experienced
firsthand the extensive community effort and dialogue that ultimately resulted in a renovation rather than a new school building. At the time, that outcome was disappointing to many residents who had hoped the town would take a longerterm view toward creating a facility that would better serve current students as
well as future generations. While the renovation was presented as the most cost-effective option, there were eventual cost increases of that project of that project combined with the long-term limitations. This reinforced for me the importance of taking a thoughtful and forward-looking approach
as our town once again considers this opportunity. I believe I could bring a valuable perspective to the committee, both as a longtime resident and through my professional experience as a local realer. In speaking weekly with prospective buyers, I see firsthand how strongly the quality of a town's schools
influences community vitality, desiraability, and long-term property values. I also understand many of the concerns residents may have, particularly seniors or homeowners without children currently in the system. I believe there is an opportunity for thoughtful community outreach and education around the
broader benefits that a strong school system brings to the entire town. perhaps through schools and your homes value presentation and open discussion at the senior center or library. I would be honored to continue contribute in any way that may be helpful and would appreciate being considered for
involvement. Thank you for your time and I look forward to hearing from you. Best regards, Lynn. >> All right. Thank you, Don. Um, in terms of next steps, we're going to table the discussion for later, which somehow we're still on time. >> One more person.
>> Oh, Maxwell, right? >> Did we receive anything? >> We did not receive anything about Maxwell. Maxwell Emory also applied as parent educator. Um, so he'll be in consideration but did not submit a statement or I don't believe is here to want to. >> Yeah. Okay. Um, so in terms of next
steps, thank you everyone. I appreciate everyone for applying. I think everyone had to check the box saying this is not a lifelong job but 5 to seven years is not a short time. Um so I really appreciate the thoughtfulness put into your application and obviously
statements made tonight. Um the school committee will take up discussion probably around 10 10 no promises. Um so feel free to stick around. If not, um obviously if we do vote tonight, the outcome of that vote, we will email you uh with that outcome and obviously the
um I believe the select board will be making a uh comment on it post um the full board being seated, the committee being seated. So um with that, I think we can move to we're going with presentations, right? Don. >> Yes. Okay. Yes. So we can move this side.
>> Yes. Yep. >> Just remember to go back. >> Yes. Yes. All right. Thank you. Hello. And it's nice to see everyone again tonight. I'm here to present the findings that have come out of our RAM
science curriculum review and put forth our recommendation. Um there thank you. So this curriculum review was a little bit different. It started um year 1 as a K through 12
endeavor and it was led by James Lavaser. Um he introduced us to the DESIE implement framework for the curriculum reviews as well as the high quality instructional
materials information coming out of DESIE and the rubrics that went along with it. We spent a lot of the year coming up with a unified vision statement and really identifying in our
individual buildings what it was that we needed at the end of this science curriculum review. Um we consulted equity at the equity audit. We looked at MCCAST alignment. We looked at a gap analysis. What did we and did we not
have in each of our buildings? In 2425 there was a pause. Um there was a lot happening and we took a year off of curriculum review and picked it back up again this year in a little bit of a
different format. So all of the schools were not at the same place and able to pick up the curriculum review in the same way. The Rams had had some time since we've had curricular materials and so we were very eager to move ahead with
the process. We took the information that we learned in the first year, shared it with the new committee. Um we had a couple of new people join. We had two two sixth grade um rep teacher representatives, one 7th
and 1/8. So we had someone from each grade level. And um if we can move to the next slide. We took the needs that we identified in year 1. Um first thing that we identified as a need was a resource. So
we had no consistent resource or support for differentiation. Teachers were self-sourcing the readings, the labs, the activities. um free online resources frequently change, websites disappear from one month to the
next and it made a lot of background work for the educators. Um the other thing was that since we were choosing our materials from all sorts of free resources, the coherence
wasn't there and we also couldn't easily gauge whether we were covering all of the um science skills efficiently over the three years because activities would change frequently and we just
didn't have the time or space to constantly realign With that, um, prep time became time was a big limitation and there was a lot of hours spent during prep just finding and formatting
and creating the lab materials which left limited time for the for the differentiating piece, the making sure that we had everything for our MLL students um, made the job really big.
Another discovery was that there was the um engineering integration gap. We had had engineering as a freestanding course and it had it was one of our um arts classes that left and computer science
came in but nothing ever really replaced engineering. So it was very incompletely taught in several places and since a third of that test is engineering in the eighth grade on the M on the MCCAST, we
felt that we really wanted to shore up how and where we were teaching engineering. The last need that we identified was that Desi is coming was changing the MCCAST format and we're in the midst of
it now. And the the questions are no longer just contentbased. They are very performance-based. They're long extensive questions asking t kids to um piece together information from a
variety of sources and their experience to really problem solve through something rather than just ABC answering questions. So, we did look for um some input from the community.
Parents heavily emphasized that they wanted more hands-on science and that real world relevance was the most important thing. Um critical thinking and discovery at 92% um and a logical balanced pacing at 79%
were the strongest interests. Um, in the comments, parents really asked directly for hands-on activities and concrete real world application again. So, they selected it and then reiterated it again in the comments,
which goes along with what we ultimately selected. So, that really mirrored what teachers also would like to see. We had eight teachers evaluate our products based on the desi curate rubric.
We we prioritized the ones that already had the um curate rating and approval. So that was for science. There's only three. Open sedlify and lab aids just got greenlighted in
December right in time for the middle of our review which I am really glad it did because as you can see 100% of our teachers voted for lab aids. So this was the one that we selected for our pilot.
um we did a soft pilot of a noncurate rated resource but felt that not knowing whether ultimately it was going to receive Desessie's approval that it was safer to go with the already curated
rated choice. So, what made this one a no-brainer for us was that it is twothirds activity- based. Activities happen almost daily. There is a lot of student discussion and discovery making
baked in. With screen time being such uh such a hot button topic right now, it gave us the option that you can use lab aids completely screenfree. we you you have a
choice of either using the books or the screen and they go together. So if a student's absent, they can access everything online. But within the classroom, if you want the students focused on what they're doing, you never have to open that Chromebook. And that was really important to us.
So, one of the things that we found in looking at the um landscape is all of Desessie's curated materials are not in the sequence that we teach them now. So, everything is moved and all over the place. In order for no students to miss
any of the standards, the committee decided a three-year roll out would be best with next year starting with the sixth grade. They would do sixth grade would get that. Then that sixth grade when they got to seventh in 2728
it'll start in seventh and then the following year it'll be an eighth. So that cohort won't miss out on any of their standards going through. The capital provided will cover the implementation. We have plans in place for the recurring
subscription costs in the following years. And while the initial investment is higher, the materials are durables. So teachers get kits. It's there's just some consumable materials, plastic forks, things like that that they
estimate the company let us know is about $300 per year per grade level to replenish. So that cost is is significantly lower than our our usual replenishment costs. We really loved that. Um, it resolved
all of our content gaps. So, engineering is now completely covered. We'll have all of our engineeries engineering standards covered and baked in to our science. Not only did it receive DESI's um approval, but ED reports give it an
all green rating and they're like the next um they're they're more of the national form of that. And they're only one of three in six through eight in the United States that got all green ratings for um for science. It's written by CPU.
We've used a lot of our teachers have used these materials before and have used CPU. um kits. They're developed in the Lawrence Hall of Science and they guarantee coherence and again that seamless engineering integration.
And the most important thing which aligns with this performance-based testing is that the phenomenon comes first. Students receive a mystery, a question first and then in the exploration of the unit, it all comes
together in the end where they solve, propose, maybe in some cases they're engineering something to deal with the problem. In others, they're explaining, making choices and all of those have to be justified. So they're really engaging
the students critical thinking. And then lastly, this is what our teachers really, really were hoping for, and that is that it has all of the supports we need. It has every lab that there is, if a student is out, it has a
visual walkthrough of the lab. So, even if they're not English speakaking, they can get the gist. If they have trouble reading, they can still see the whole thing. Um the literacy integration is there and it's all
researchbased literacy. So that supports our work across the building. And then lastly, the the kits are ready to go. They're sorted out. Teachers will bring out a drawer for each unit. It's already pieced out. all of that time for prep
and cleanup is um can be redirected into spending more time with students and student work. So um ultimately Labase was our choice and uh we hope you'll consider it.
>> Thank you Carla. So Carla had also given a lengthier presentation which I believe is in your folder as well if you had other questions but you'll also see um I linked into the um >> and it goes really into depth into all of the different areas and everything that we did over the three years but I
didn't think you wanted 27 pages. >> It was very thorough and well done. Thank you. Um but I did put in the memo. It it pretty much captures what she's already talked about with you. But there's a memo in your packet. So, you've already voted to um fund the
support the capital request and it's already been voted on by the select board town meeting. So, now really it's really just a matter that we wanted to share what we're purchasing. So, it was budgeted for 150,000 for K through 8, but we didn't fulfill the um preK to
preK or K to the start number >> pre K2. >> K2. Yeah. >> So, this is the um amount just for the sixth, seventh, and eth. and it would be 130,000 out of the funds that we've already um had assigned to us for capital requests.
>> And I'm not sure if anyone has any other questions. >> I had one. Um so sixth grade will start next year. It'll continue seventh and eighth grade. Yes. Um certainly would like an update at the end of the year or even mid year how it's going. Um for the
sixth graders and it's I don't want to falsely assume every sixth grade then going in. So in 27th, sixth grade will start it in the seventh and eighth, right? The roll out is meant to make sure the class can follow through with it. >> Follow through the and receive >> but all the new classes also >> and then all the new classes following
behind. >> Um but all at once would have meant that our seventh graders and eighth graders next year would miss something. >> Got it. Okay. >> And then just wanted to thank the curriculum review committee members um that are up on the screen here. Katie Cameron, Lisa Katalto, Tina Cortis, Jen
Dayan, Diane Duca, Carla Kros, and Jody Manow. It's a long time coming and great work has been done. I mean, since 2015, there was a kind of a pause in cricket reviews and so we've really moved to a much more rigorous approach these last few years and it's we're reaping the
benefits of that, which is nice. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Thank you. Okay, we're going to want to go through end of year or cover the >> Okay, that
>> sounds good. All right, end of year goals updates. >> So, I just I'm going to be part of our discussion tonight. This is hot off the presses. We just sent this out and shared it with staff. So, I'm giving you a color copy because it looks so nice when it's printed out. We'll talk about
that in our presentation. Okay. So, um, we knew there was going to be a lot on the agenda tonight and we did a really lengthy and thorough presentation. Actually, two I didn't I think we did two separate ones. We did secondary and elementary along with the
district gold in the midyear um updates. And so now we're just presenting some data that we've received or information we've done since that time. So we're not going into a lot of data tonight. We're really trying to be efficient. So we're going to focus on each arch um at each building level.
So just always highlight I hope everybody still has their posters. We really been grounded in our work. This is year four going into our final year next year of our very rigorous um very much aligned strategic plan with our very um unique mission and vision and
our arches um aligned with our eight arches bridge in town. So I won't open it up but at every slide when you get to each building you'll see that we updated our end of the year um column. So, there's a lot more information in our reports there that
you can open up and look at yourself, but tonight we just want to highlight some things that we feel we've um really focused on and moved on this year. So, at the district level under arch one communication practices, some of our end of the year progress, we've done a great job with our standardsbased reporting.
We really fully implemented the whole standardsbased report card for elementary and it's been launched and it's it's now we have a web page for public sharing. So, that's been a really successful project. pre-K to 12 plus content area department websites. Again, working to create even more rigorous um
websites, wellness and world language platforms are two of them and making it user friendly for all stakeholders and also ensuring that we have um communication that is visible for all types of language learners and making sure that it's accessible to all.
Another area is data governance and there's a robust data governance baseline. Now, um, we, thank you to Dan and Chris Mayo, worked on grant-f funed projects to help support our teacher and paraphrasals with training. And then we continue to work on our HPS family hub
to really engage and support new and existing families and again really focusing on the different languages and ML learners that have come to our district and we're becoming more diverse and making sure we're meeting the needs of all families as they come into Hollist. So, what is next under Arch
One? do want to cons continue to standards based do expansion of our standardsbased roll out. Um there's been a talk of trying to move this up as well into the middle school and I think that's a really important next step and I think there's an interest and willingness to do so. Also want to continue to really upgrade and improve
our website to make sure that everything is accessible the way we've talked about. We're going to continue our work on cyber security. We've had a lot of things happening with cyber security and really making sure um that staff do not fall prey to this because as a district it can get very costly and uh we can be
opened up to real um issues with information getting out there confidential things. So we've worked hard on that and we need to continue that work and we also need to make sure that we're coming with good communication with CPAC all of our different neighborhood schools and that we're getting communication out for all
stakeholders in a meaningful way. Did you want to add anything, Dan, on the cyber security? >> Uh, no. We've just we're launching monthly fishing campaigns. There's fake fishing going out to all staff. There's also real fishing, which we're trying to
stop, but um it's it's interesting. Um staff is really um catching on. We think they're they're turning in a lot of requests. >> Target. >> I think I'm giving away a lot. >> Targeted. So, it's it's like whack-a-ole every day. there's something new there,
something real coming in or something fake. So, it's hard to >> but they're getting much better at catching it. So, under arch 2 um Mr. Venet put together a lot of this work on the social emotional well-being. So, for end of year, we've really expanded our
work and he shared some of this work mid year as well around mental health, social emotional learning, PBIS and ruler some really strong partnerships with all of this work and he highlighted the chronic absenteeism. very impressive the work that's been done um by some of the team here as well moving from um
10.7% to 9.7% and continuing to decline for the third year in a row. So that's great. It means our students are more engaged in and they're having more time on learning by not being absent. We this year u worked on and that's what I have handed to you. So we had a decap
before it was a much shorter um and I'm not sure it was a live document. I know when I arrived here, we talked about it was a previous strategic plan, but it didn't seem like it was a live document and I think the DK that we had in some cases was being used, but wasn't also a live document. So, we really took a
time, a number of us worked together this year to develop a just a curriculum accommodation plan and it really highlights executive skills, social, emotional behavioral accommodations in tier one and tier 2. And we really want to highlight and retrain staff in the fall. That is the goal next to make sure
this gets implemented properly next year because I think our staff really need strong reminders that under the multi-tered systems of supports under tier one there are so many things and you'll see that highlighted in our document. There are so many things that are just good teaching practices that
every child should be able to access. We don't have to put them on an IEP. We don't have to necessarily give them reading support or math support. They may not need that. They might just need some small accommodations in the classroom. and general educators have to be feeling comfortable and they have to have sufficient training to make sure
that they feel comfortable using the uh different strategies in the classroom. And we haven't done a great job in tier one. We've done a really good job in tier 2. We've done a really good job in tier three, but we realize we need to kind of go back and rebuild our tier one model and make sure we're enhancing that for our staff next year. And then we
definitely worked on a lot of executive functioning and so focusing on student anxiety, the attendance and crisis response. So um Jerry's worked on that student impact council and I think he had shared with you a couple meetings ago. So what are we going to do about this far too next year working on
launching district data convergence conference and translating Metro West and other student well-being data and he'll be presenting that obviously will reenroll in Metro West again and we're signing off those documents right now and that work should continue again have making sure that the decap is accessible
and is being utilized as a living document. So what we've talked about the team that we worked with this year is making sure that all staff will get the colorful paper copy to have in their desk. But we even want to differentiate that some staff will use the technology version which will be on the website and
some staff will use all of the um what was the resources that we >> notebook LM >> notebook LM and they can use that to really embed it into their um own curriculum plans on a daily basis. So we're actually differentiating with staff because some people still want that paper copy and some people are
ready for so much more. And then we definitely need to strengthen the district capacity and making sure we're developing professional development to help support staff. And then um Mr. Renee did put in his end of the year safe and supportive schools presentation just highlighting some of the things that he had focused on and also wants to
continue us to focus on next year under arch 3. Where are we under teaching and learning? Well, again, we're trying to be concise here. There was so much more we could have put in this conversation here, but AI integration and safety, we've had strong
clear guidelines on this, but again, there's still a lot of work to be done. Every day I'm reading conflicting information about should we be using AI. Some places are talking about not allowing AI. So, I think there's still a lot of confusion and work that needs to be done, but we do want to see if we can start using resources like Notebook LM
for high school students. We also as we've talked about in other meetings and we've shared a lot of data from open architect. I think actually the last meeting we presented on the bullying information that you had asked about and that data was very accessible to me as the lay person that doesn't use that a lot. Um I was able to look at that and
really share some data with you that was confidential but helps helps inform our instruction and we're going to continue to use that and share it. I think it's our most teachers now have access to >> getting there getting >> our own. Yeah. Okay. >> And we're continuing to ramp up our curriculum reviews. As I mentioned
earlier, it was from 2015 we had a gap in there. And so we we last few years have done a great job bringing that work back and really aligning our curriculum um pre-K to 12 vertically and horizontally. And another area working with our par professionals. We've done a
ton of work trying to support par professionals with their training needs and incorporating them in the training some of the staff are getting as well. So what's next? What should we be doing next? Well, our director of technology and digital learning will be helping support this work again around AI and
scaling um integration next year and he'll be working with some of the recommendations which I believe you had already shared out Mr. Mloud some of those recommendations. >> Correct. We're waiting for the new leadership in the summer and then look at the AI steering committee recommendations again >> and then really also working on our
professional learning communities and common planning time because we have systems in place. We have common planning for our teachers, but are we using that time effectively with PLC's and how are we helping support tier one? So, that's a lot of work that our leaders will be doing next year around tier one, continuing the work that we um
implemented at the start of this year. And the curriculum review timelines will continue. You'll be getting some new science um curriculum for preK or K to 2 next year. And the work will continue with our to support our PAR professionals as well.
Arch four, talent and reset re, excuse me, resources. Obviously, we're very excited. I wrote five SOIs and I think one or two had been written prior to me, so it's taken a long time and we know it's still a long process. I won't be here for groundbreaking or maybe I'll come back. I don't know. But just to have secured
that funding was a huge win for our community here under curriculum and technology. all the tech infrastructure and curriculum materials that were approved at Maytown meeting will continue to support the work that we need to continue the the salaries for our staff. We've worked to help support our non-un staff. We already have
contracts in place that will um expire next year for our HFT educators. So, we're continuing that work on that journey and again working on the FL project that um has been how many years has it been now, Dr. Jordan? I feel like um three or four years ago I started
having the conversation with students. I know it goes back before that, but when we really started digging into getting um some of that work at least 3 to four years. >> Well, I mean it does go back and it was it was deep work that we did back in like 2017 and through and it's been a part of that that process. I think the
co really kind of slowed down as far as where we were going but even kind of been in in conversations with Mark Frank um back pre precoid kind of went through as far as building that type of project. um very excited that the the CIP um or
the I guess the group in for CPC for providing the the funds uh to be basically carry this carry this project forward. So >> and I know Mr. Kim you've heard me ask students in um many years I was asking them what would you want for this project and I did share all of that um
and some of that is coming to fruition as well. The students voice mattered in this process. I did want to put in about retention data. We've had long conversations about this over the years and so I put together a little um let me see if I can get it to open up. I put together a little line graph for
you cuz I think how do I do this? Going to share one second share this. When you toggle away you have to go back to the next. So,
now I've lost my Oh, there it is. Sorry. Okay. It's very quick when you can throw in data and have AI help you with it. So, there are definitely pros to this. So, we've had a lot of conversations about what does educator retention look like by school year. So I actually went back
to 201516 and to the present because there's some misinformation about what retention has happened and where it's gone. But if you look back to so at the beginning of the 201516 school year so the data at 89% was from the previous year the school year ended with 89% of
our staff retained going into 2015 16. Similarly uh the following year entering 2016 89% of our staff were retained. Then the following year in 201718 a really good retention year for starting 2017 94.5%.
92.1% was a little bit of a drop in 20189 and 91.3 in 1920. So that was the year that we ended co. So we started 2019 with 91.3%. And now as we get into the next year. So
this is the data I started to inherit. Um, in 201920 we had um, actually I think the year's a little off there. I believe it was 201920 was the 88.3% and then going into my first year here
the 202021 it did drop down to 84.9% at uh, prior to my arrival and then we had a dip and that was the heavy co year entering uh, 2021. There was a retention rate of 82.2. So what seemed like a lot and that was my first uh full year that
I was starting into my second year it was really 2.7% and I've heard a lot about that but that was to be expected during co what we expected to see those changes and then the following year starting in 2022 and uh the end of 22 we went back up to 89% so stronger
retention back to pre-COVID and then if you go back to the next year 86.5 a slight drop off there and look at where we are now so we ended last year and retained staff at a rate of 92.2%. So, we're back up to that highest rate. So, you know, um I've heard a lot of
conversation, misinformation about that. We really did not see the significant drops that we speaking of. There were slight drops along the way and then back up and next year could look differently because we do have a number of retirements this year. So, we'll see and hope for the best um with retaining staff and continue to work on that. So,
why is this all important? Obviously huge year next year looking for that feasibility study to come through. The money's already been acquired. That's great news. Um definitely need to continue the work on rolling out our curriculum resources and staff are excited to work with these new
resources. A lot of infrastructure upgrades are going to happen and we'll be continuing to update ranges for FY27. solar installation is happening at Rams and the flag project is really going to be breaking ground and again I did mention that while retention rates look
really great um we've done a nice job working with staff to support them at the same token with retirements you may see that drop off a little bit so we'll I'll pass that off to our one one more slide um just want to
highlight again all the work the leadership team has done this year um we we sent four administrators to the data wise leadership institute. They brought back that work to the district. They've also attended multiple trainings since then. All of this with the mind that our tier one focus, so all the work we try
to focus on is what how are we going to support our students in tier one and also tier two with our new decap and then how we going to make sure we roll this out and give staff the training they need to be successful next year. High school All right. So, the link is there um on
the slide for um the entirety of all of the endear goals, but just to highlight a little bit of our work here. Um you know, this year with the upcoming change in schedule. One of the goals was to really provide a lot of communication around that shift. Um what that would look like and understand how the students are experiencing that. Um so we
spent a lot of time um doing that and I think by the end of the year we heard from students um you know talking about that they felt comfortable they understand what they're taking they understand what they're doing. So um and we heard from families um you know that they felt confident with the new program
of studies that came out understanding what the path for their students look like. So really trying to streamline our communication practices um so that folks felt good um about the the shift that's ongoing. Um, we also tried to highlight and and we did the opportunities that
exist at the high school um with the the new grants that are coming in and the pathways and the internship uh the the expansion of internship opportunities. Um really finding time to uh make sure families know what's happening, what what opportunities their students have uh throughout their time at Hollison
High School. Um so for next year um we want to continue expanding that so that families again are are really sure about what we offer, really understand what it means when they come to high school, what that what students can take, what students can do. Um we also want to hear from from our students um and our staff
about what uh what the experience of the new schedule is because anytime a new schedule rolls out, there are going to be bumps and we need to understand what those are to be able to support the students and staff um around that change. Um, and so we're going to continue to do that and then again, as I said, find ways to uh continue to
highlight all the the things that our students are doing just like you had the opportunity to hear tonight from, you know, the the leadership of the project 351 for high school students and they're looking to expand they're working with Dr. Bernier to expand some work of that into the high school um and and to really showcase those out in in the
community. Um, so next slide. um the the social emotional well-being um we really uh you'll hear about this a little bit later too in the NEAS report that we have but really needing to build out systems of supports for students um
is an area that we continue to work out of the high school um devel developing all different tiers of supports both academically and social emotionally for our students um but we started to partner more with HDAC um that's the students you heard from first um in
providing more um education around the safe choices for students because um you was hearing more about that trying to uh partner with folks like the like Challenge Day and Nor Eastern Center for Sport and really bring it into where the students are um and providing uh a broad range of opportunities for those
students. And that's we're hoping to continue out um through 2627. Um again with this new schedule, our hope is to better understand student needs both academically and social emotionally because they'll be in that same class all year um versus feel like that sprint of 90 days. So hopefully
we'll be able to start identifying more um and working with with staff and students and families to build out more supports for students. So that will take time. It's a slow process, but um we have to start with the the shift in the schedule first and and really pay attention to the data that comes out um
as we're moving along. Um I think the the decap that the district has worked on is going to be really helpful in supporting our students across the board um and giving teachers a resource there to to use right away. um within the new structures um that we have.
So, um the teaching and learning piece, um we had a lot of work this year. Uh we provided um opportunities through all of our PD days uh for staff to look at um the uh stage one of the maps to re uh focus in on their scope and sequence of
each of those of each of the courses that they're teaching um that we offer to allow to develop those out based on um the new schedule that we have. um work on curriculum alignment um so that our students have the same experience when you're taking uh you know when
you're taking algebra 1 CP1 that it's that similar experience same experience throughout the you know doesn't matter what teacher you have um again looking at the first step of the curriculum maps is stage one to to do that there um and building in our vision of the graduate
rubric standards um into that map so that it's connected so that our students and our staff and our community understand um how our vision of graduate is impacted by what students are doing in the classroom as well. Um so that's all connected there. Um we had um
started to build out with open architects all of the different uh data components that we have um looking at all of our scores through whether PSAT, SAT, AP. Um just of note, we have over 100 additional um uh test takers this
year. um which is something that we talked about in terms of when I got here it wasn't a requirement to take the test and um it's a requirement for starting next year it's a requirement to students to take the test but we really encourage students to do it this year and we had 100 additional students take the test
this year so um that was good to see um we um the reveal curriculum has been fully rolled out um for our math department um and we were able to bring in um over $100,000 in grants um through the innovation career
pathways um in our business program. Um and we will have um additional grants coming in through um innovation pathways for a uh communications computer science pathway. Um and then we were able to bring in additional grant money for um
another it's I think next year is another 404 somehat thousands um for biomed um a biomedical pathway um and an engineering pathway. So really to allow students to focus in on areas that they're interested in and and really build out um what they want to do. So
those will be expanding next year. um we have to obviously continue to work on um our curriculum maps and building out our curriculum resources as we shift into the schedule. But again, a lot of that is going to be a lived experience and trying to understand um what's needed um
you know is is something that you know as we go through each of the each of the quarters, each of the semesters into the year, we'll understand more and more about the needs when it comes to um the the curriculum and learning learning for students there. Um and again just in terms of supporting
um you know our staff and and our practices um really um looking at again how we provide opportunities for staff to to meet to get the work done that they need to do to uh build out um for the the the schedules. um making sure
that um we're uh we have to work on next year really on looking at how we're onboarding new staff and new teachers. We have, you know, younger staff coming in. Um and we have to build out those sort of professional structures for growth of them and and we have like a new social study teacher, new French
teacher coming in. So, um we're excited for all that and we're excited for the the shift that we have and we need to make sure that we're um building out systems and structures um to support our our staff. So, Um, we have we Sorry, it's been quiet for a while. Um,
we have our our link there that you can um peruse at your leisure. I'm sure everyone is excited to do that in their free time. Um, it it really spaces out um, you know, the specific things that we've done under each arch. Um but in
our communication practices this year we have um expanded our RAM's Instagram account uh students were trained and it's sort of under the guidance of our student government um advisor and they sort of post all the um information
there. We are working through some privac privacy restrictions right now. So it's flyers, events and really just another way to inform families. Um, we also started using Lexi Key for translation tools. Um, the world language web page and the teaching and
learning newsletter launched. Um, and the folks in the building put a lot of work into that. Um, the open architect dashboard was expanded to team leaders and sort of everyone on our um, counseling team. We're still working
with um the open architect folks and with Dan on some of the privacy issues which is why we're not opening it up to teachers yet. Um our chronic absenteeism we still focus on we're we're steady again at 9%. Um the students that are in
that percentage get you know letters. Um there are counselor plans for kids that are chronically absent and tardy. what we noticed and I reported earlier this year, we have mostly Fridays um and pre-ation um family travel and sports that are are
chronic um absenteeism. So, I'm not sure we can do u much about that. I know that's important to the community. Um it is slightly higher in our high need subgroups which we're monitoring. they um all the kids in our
building receive the same supports, but um we're not sure why there are a couple of groups that have slightly higher chronic absenteeism rates. Um so we continue to provide more tier 2 supports to those students and families. Um
what's next is continuing to expand our social media. Um developing some protocol for pictures. We have a lot of students on the DMP do not photograph list, so we can't um upload pictures. We're launching our parent and caregiver resource hub with the translation and
accessibility. Um we do plan to host family evenings on key middle school challenges um at least by monthly next year. Um so we can really lean into the support from the community. um expand open architect dashboard for all teachers with a shared data call uh data
call data protocol in place so that everyone is who has access to it knows how to use it in their um in their meetings and disagregate the chronic absenteeism to build targeted support uh that's more aligned with the with the
high need students who are showing a higher rate. Um this this is our jam social emotional wellness. Um this year we have 13,000 over 13,000 PBS comment PBIS comments logged. So those are um
com individual comments that teachers make for students highlighting their positive behavior. It's also a spot where referrals are made and then tracked through our powers school system. parents have access to that so they can see um that communication and
it's digital. Students have access to it as well. Um they love it. It it seems maybe elementary but they get points and then they cash in their points for um things that they like to
use like fidgets and pencils and stickers. And for whatever reason it works. It's um significantly changed the culture at Rams over the last few years, especially especially the digital platform. Um our student leadership opportunities have increased from six to
70% um since 2023 and we have over 70 peer leaders trained, but as you can see by the presentation tonight, that is not the only work that we do. Um for example, all of the eighth graders participated in community service day recently. Um and and regular.
>> They love to go to Plentino. They love to go to Plentino so much. Um, and so, you know, there's just opportunities all throughout their six through eight career to participate in leadership. They can nominate themselves, they can be nominated. There are so many avenues
for them to try that on. Um, our decap uh was rolled out in our June um faculty meeting, our ruler lesson bank. So yes, we're using ruler, but we also tailored that specifically to the problems at RAMS um using our PBIS referral system.
Teachers developed those lessons. So it's the ruler lessons um that are the through line um you know through the district but specifically tailored by the teachers for the students and those are weekly lessons. Um and we also have a K to2 safety protocol complete. Um the
Rams community resource list is going to be embedded in the DECAP. Um we did get back the results from our Metro West Health survey. Um and we have an increase of 8% uh for feeling safe and that is in school and out of school and
that's 5% above the state average. And bullying is also down 4%. Um, we have ruler and weekly PBIS meetings to sustain this culture and we do things like challenge day, project 351, playbook initiative, the list goes on
and on. Um, I know there were some questions about bullying specifically. So, I did add a link there um where you can kind of access um some additional information. Do we want to do that now or do you want
to wait? Would you like me to pop that up? Sure. Talk about that. >> Um >> I think there's this is a response because there were a lot of questions about why middle school has the larger longer bars and I was not surprised have
middle school teacher but I think just drilling down with that a little bit would be helpful. >> Yeah, we document everything. Um so if an incident comes through if a teacher refers something we do document it. So, this is just sort of a a story that kind of takes us through this school year.
Um, it's we have a a very deeply embedded PBIS culture, which I just talked about. Um, and and a huge commitment to restorative practices um and datadriven support for all kids. It sounds maybe a little bit cold, but it
is the most supportive place I've ever worked for kids. It is. We have an amazing counseling staff, an amazing crisis team, and outstanding teachers. Um, these are just sort of things that I already went over, but if we can kind of scroll down to the incident overview.
So, this year we had6 total behavior incidents tracked across the school year. Um, that is a stable 15%. Um, that that is continued like year to year. Um, the running incident rates tracked closely with last year shown consistent
and calibrated tracking mechanisms. Electronic logging ensures every disciplinary or support action is accounted for giving administration full building visibility. Um and then there was this is the analysis of what's sort of going on. Every bullying report is
taken seriously and we open a full investigation at the request of any student and parent or caregiver. We may also open them ourselves. Um there were 106 incidents total and five of those were classified as bullying. So those were folks that said, "I want to open a
bullying investigation." We go over the definition of bullying. We talk with the kids. We talk with the u parents and caregivers. Many many many many times we we discover in defining bullying that it's been circular. And once it is
circular and the kids are being unkind to each other, it's no longer classified as bullying. we can still open a bullying investigation, but in those instances, parents and students usually say, "Well, I did this to them and then
they did this to me." So, I think um as we continue to talk about this, it's one of the topics that we're going to heavily lean into with our in-house experts next year. Um I I the the word is used a lot. The findings are even rarer than the the
sort of reports that we do. Um, and just so you know, we have 14 school days to do a report. We usually take the 14 school days. We have an extensive list of students that we interview, which means students that are get get taken out of class time um that provide
statements. We have, you know, dozens of pages that go into sort of the final report and determination and we follow a workflow that's provided by the state. We are very, very thorough. Um, of the five investigations, there was one that resulted in actual bullying. Um, and
that is.9% of all of our incidents at RAMPS. Um, there are currently two open investigations that have not yet been logged and classified. And I know, um, Susan just recently talked you through the whole process. Um, disorderly conduct led to, um, all the infractions
at 32 incidents followed by policy violations at 17 incidents. Um there's a majority of those that fall under the category of hate speech. Unfortunately, um students at Rams are trying on a lot of language that they're seeing on social media. Both problems we're going
to address, um you know, next year by leaning in with the community a little bit more. Physical altercations were limited to 12 instances. Most of those just result in kids not knowing their awareness. Um accidents and um fighting
was two. uh tier one behavior strategies are keeping the building safe. Um the grade level progress, we are tracking that data by grade level. I chose not to report that out to you um because I feel like it would really paint a picture of a specific grade and uh and that's not
what we do. They're all individual kits. Um but I have respect for our students and families. I'm not reporting that out publicly. And then uh the the the mapping for that sort of as the year goes on. Um we have a fall peak which is
typical 18 incidents in um October and 19 in November. Uh those are the highest months of the year. Midyear we stabilize in January and February. Uh each bottomed out at five incidents. We have a spring surge. Um in March we saw 15.
May we saw 17. So, our recommendation is to continue um front-loading the culture events and the proactive supports and then hopefully the strategies that we're using next year with families in the community will help um continue this.
>> Okay. Question for the community. >> It's news to me tonight that if it's a circular incident, it does not get logged as bullying. I think that's what you said, correct? It's it's not yet it's typically not classified as bullying if the students were both >> um if a student reports for example um
so and so called me this name every day this week and it's it's it's bother you know so okay do you want to have you know that sounds like that might be classified as bullying so let's go over what that is and if the student says yes I want to have a bullying investigation we do the bullying investigation if the
student says well I did this to them you know last week and then they did this to me and it turns into this very circular situation. We still create safety plans. We still contact parents. Um we still note it. It's still logged but it's not there's not the determination of
bullying. Got it. >> Um in those instances >> yeah I think it's important to break cuz to parents at least for me it's hard to >> if they're mean to each other it's not a it's not >> targeted I guess it's mutual. >> It's a pretty specific definition. Um,
and I know Susan went over it. So, and it it is it's complicated because they're getting more independent and they're really struggling, especially in the last two years with anything that's unstructured. I think they have less practice doing that. Um, they have a lot of organized activities, a lot of
organized sports. They're super involved in things. Um, but even when we take them outside, they they they seem like a different group. um the hitting, the hands-on, spraying with water,
even pancing has started again. Um so we are really zeroing in on that behavior next year. Um because it's getting increasingly >> and do we report out I I guess we're going to classified or they've reported out because I think it's important to monitor both, right? Just because one is
going down, another one may be rising. Not that it's better, it's classified differently, but we should be keeping an eye on >> Yeah. So, we're keeping our eye on that behavior and that's what we're going to focus on for next year. >> And I will say too, so that yes, bullying is one thing that has to reported to Destiny. There are other types of incidents that also have to
reported in school suspensions. Um um if you have a um emergency removals, there are all other types of codes that do have to be reported. So, that data is available. And one thing we did find out this year is that some of our um data wasn't being coded accurately into our
so the the process was being done, determinations were being made, communication was happening to students and families, but it wasn't always coded right in our system. So that's a work in progress, too. We learned that we need to do some more training with our administrators every year and make sure that the codes are being done correctly
so that it gets reported at the desk. for any other behavior update questions >> as it relates to the community having looked at this over you know a number of decades u but specifically almost a
decade and a half in the holl public schools um we we have great behavior relative to our our communities around us middle schools just if you look if you look and we have the metro west health data and you pull kind of our area middle schools in there you're going to see similar
differences between middle schools and the other schools uh in that area. Uh unfortunately, as you know, as Susan as Susan was saying and then also as Karen was saying, you know, this is this is part of the process of a middle schooler
as far as that one that advocacy is a major part of what they are learning and you see that u but uh they're very kind of self and inner inner focused and they those struggles do start to pop out in middle school. I have to say I have seen a marked improvement when I'm visiting
the buildings that the students are I mean we saw that disregulation obviously after co and now the marked improvement in the hallways the kids are much more respectful they're very polite they're always welcoming and and then even with my u group that I meet with the round table those kids have a lot to share and
they have no problem sharing it and they do inform our decision-m both at the building level and the district level so you're doing a great job opening it >> they're they're joyful they're amazing if question or think of what it might not what it sounds like on paper. If
you're hearing something different, please come in and and I'll walk you around and just hang out for a while because it's it is such a great place. >> Yeah. >> Um so what's next? We're going to continue to deepen our, you know, our ruler work. We're going to expand our um social
emotional work with families and in-house experts. Um still aiming to grow the leadership. Um, we are strengthening our tiered PBIS supports. One thing that came out of our Metro West Health survey was that um, our Latino friends and the LGBTQ plus
students um, had higher rates of reporting bullying and harassment and female students continue to be um, you know, reporting elevated anxiety above their other Metro West peers. Um, and we've targeted plans and development for
both of those areas. Uh we're growing our challenge day team and um again I I we're just continuing to try to bring people in to see what we're all about at the middle school by hosting some more family sessions. Our teaching and learning is on fire. So
um curriculum development, you'll see all the things. Uh we're we're really on track with uh completing stage two at the end of this year. So our teachers have done a lot of work. I want to point out um a we find great meaning in that work because we're connecting across
subject areas. Um we continue to evolve. Curriculum is never done. We continue to look at what we're doing and what kids are showing. Our literacy interventions are up 158%. Math 274%. We we could get our literacy there if we
had a reading tutor because the the 274 was from the the uh the math tutor. We're using dibbles for our students that are far below grade level in grade six. And we went from five to zero. Um 27 ELA students um at expected or
accelerated growth in the in the um intervention group. And then we've had tech tips uh weekly that could be AIPD Google classroom workshops and those are completed. In next year, we want to continue to work on our MTSS tier one
using the DECAP. Um, working on our stage two assessments in particular and then stage three in all areas. Um, we're launching a full executive functioning PD and we're going to have uh developed structured grade specific executive function lesson banks that happen weekly
as well as a tier 2 space for our students that need additional support which we're currently piloting. And that's all under the the PEG Dawson work umbrella um that Jarielle brought to us. We're going to continue to monitor the student progress on the new accelerated math track in grade seven and uh deep
dive into our assessments using um univide sorry universal design and project based learning. I have no more words left for today. So for that talent and resources um we do have multi-day onboarding um for all staff and our
mentorship pool was expanded um which is going great. Uh all of our educator and administrator evaluation cycles are complete. We have a very high staff uh retention right now. We have two retirements and those are the only changes. Um we do have a so committee
that um operationalized sort of a wellness calendar for staff. So, we offer things like yoga, pilates, um they're going to Fenway next week, I think. Um and our culture and climate surveys are being administers administered and then we're going to
disegregate them right after that. And next year, we want to rework some of our goal setting and evidence process and then continue to expand our um wellness and social calendars. Thank you. There's >> a lot going on. All right. I did want to point out
obviously Dr. Lane is going to present next blessantino and then Miller is coming up after that and we decided that Mr. Kim should be using this time to consider himself a new school commits to the presentation. So that is why our
incoming principal Moro is taking over. This is no different. You know we're not trying to keep Dr. I mean Mr. Kim out of it. We really just felt that this is an opportunity now with Brenda here to present. We did pull up the idea about wearing costume.
>> He did say the first meeting he's coming in a costume. So >> for the whole meeting in August, >> it will be August. >> He particularly likes Captain America. So you'll see. >> All right. So Duckus lady. >> Yeah.
So, at Plastentino this year, we've continued to really strengthen our um communication and partnerships with our families. We've expanded our use of Seesaw, newsletters, um conf um conferences, social media. Social media
is a little hard. We have a lot of families, like you said, who are opting to not have their um students photographed. So, sometimes you see a lot of backs of heads um >> hands >> in hands, right? We get very artsy with our pictures with our um our social
media posts and really our goal is to inform our families about student learning and school events. We've continued to increase our transparency by um continuing to share assessment data. um our new standardsbased report card we rolled out for the first time
this year and we'll continue to refine that um as we go giving regular progress updates while creating more opportunities to really celebrate our student learning and strengthen our community connections. Looking ahead, we're going to continue to refine our
communication, look for more ways to expand two-way communication rather than just one-way communication. And as we dive into new curriculum, really helping our families understand um the curriculum, the assessment and interventions so that they can be active
partners in their students success. So supporting social, emotional, and behavioral well-being. Um did you say it's fire? Is that what you said? That's our on fire. >> On fire. I have a middle school and sometimes when I talk to Karen I'm like you hang out a lot with them. The
language is there but this is really what we do and what our foundation is. So we we saw some encouraging results reducing our chronic absenteeism from 11.5 to 10.1. We still have a lot of work to do there. Um much like Mrs. Manning was talking about it's a lot of
is around vacations and um extended vacations um for a lot of our families. So we need to strike a balance there. Um, but that's a lot what we're seeing. We did see nearly um 200 fewer tardies compared to last year, which I know was
a question for the committee as we moved to the earlier start time. We also noticed that the kids are tardy were also tardy. It's the it's we we track the same pattern. So, it's not ours tardy, but it's just the same amount of time tardy. Um, often our most tardies
are within, you know, 5 to 10 minutes. Um, we really feel successful in the implementation of our social emotional lessons, helping our students build self-awareness, emotional regulation, and relationship skills.
Dr. Pasca, I I'll say that um when you s talked about that we're kind of over the the COVID hump in behavioral regulation, I'll say it's interesting that our um our kids that were born, our kindergarteners right now were born in
2020 and we are seeing a lot of differences in executive skills. Um less sustained attention, um less ability for em emotional regulation. So we are really targeting those um building those
skills and looking at our teaching and looking at how do we need to shift with the students in front of us. So next year we're going to continue that momentum by strengthening our attendance supports through early identification and intervention and um we're going to
continue to expand our lessons in executive functioning anti-bullying and our PBIS ruler initiative. So much like the middle school and I think Mrs. Maro's going to talk to you about it. We're going to have explicit lessons in executive functioning. We're going to tie that to um materials that every
classroom will have. So, for instance, um we're all all classrooms, this is very seems very simple, but we're going to have time timers in every classroom. So, so those timers that red if you're in education, you know about them. Um that shows as time goes because kids have a real hard time understanding what
is five minutes. It's going to help build those skills. So hopefully as they get to Miller and Rams in the high school, they're going to be building those executive skills as they go. So um our work in teaching and learning has really focused on strengthening
those foundational literacy and math skills for all students. We're really proud of the progress we've made. Um across the school we've seen significant gains in reading and math outcomes including strong patterns in phmic awareness, phonics, number sense and
algebraic thinking. These results are the um efforts of our teachers, our interventionists, our specialists, our support staff working together to provide really high quality instruction and targeted support. Looking ahead, we are really excited about bringing in the
implementation of CLA, which I believe um our excellent humanity specialists brought that to you in a previous meeting. We feel that we really need to strengthen our tier one um curriculum in English language arts and our teachers
are working really hard right now to create a lot of those lessons based on the science of reading and having a cohesive curriculum K through five is really going to help um I think um we're going to see even more progress. We're going to continue with year three of
Eureka Math Squared and we'll continue to strengthen our intervention and progress monitoring systems with a lot of the things that everyone's already talked about. Um, our focus remains on ensuring that every student receives highquality grade level instruction while providing timely and effective
supports for students who need more assistance. And then finally, in talent and resources, we have really focused um we've made important progress in strengthening our multi-tered systems of support. So, as you've been hearing, MTSS, we've improved leadership
structures, increased our staff capacity to use data effectively. We're um better aligning our staffing and our scheduling and our resources to support students across all three tiers. These efforts have helped us build a stronger foundation for providing equitable and
responsive um supports for our students. Next year, we'll focus on deepening and sustaining these systems. We're going to um create more consistency in our MTSS practices. We're going to strengthen our staff expertise, as we talked about, not only in tier one with um new curriculum,
but in using data in real time for decision making and intervention planning. And ultimately this work is about ensuring that every student um receives the right support at the right time. >> All right.
>> All right. So um as um Dr. Kuska pointed out I am presenting today but Dave is here and so it is important that we keep his name on the table as well acknowledging that he's back there. Um so it's my privilege to share updates at
end of year from Miller knowing there's links detailed links um underneath there. Um I'll start with communication practices. Um our goal this year was to increase efforts to inform and engage families and students academic, behavioral, and attendance progress. To
support this goal, we continued our weekly family news communications with translation, successfully implemented, as you heard prior, um, and communicated our new standardsbased report card system, expanded opportunities for student voice through student advisory
and the superintendent roundts and strengthened our community partnerships to include monthly themed food pantry collections. We also gathered feedback from newly enrolled families to better understand and improve the onboarding experience for both families and
students. Next year, we'll continue refining communication practices based on family feedback, strengthen onboarding supports through our student success team process, expand opportunities for student and family voice, and explore additional ways to
connect with and engage all families, including home visit opportunities. We aim to strengthen family school partnerships by increasing awareness of communication channels and points of contact, ensuring families feel heard, supported, and connected through
responsive two-way communication and direct problem solving. Moving on to arch 2, the middle school's jam. Um we do have a motto at Miller School, welcome and expect greatness that uh became a part of our school community as
a result of student voice, family voice and staff voice last year. So I would connect that directly to our social and emotional well-being that that is our goal. Everybody feels welcome and everybody has greatness and we want to celebrate that. So um more broadly our
goal is to foster a positive and inclusive school environment through strong implementation of our PBIS program care that's now aligned to Placentino and our SEAL curriculum resource ruler which we've heard in other buildings as well. So there's good vertical alignment there and ensure
effective team structures exist to collaborate on tier 1 and two student interventions as part of our MTSS system. This year, we strengthened our MTSS system through the creation of a modified and focused protocol for the student success team and improved progress monitoring structures that
align with our dyslexia action plan, including access for our team members on our student success team to open architect. So, that was our first group that had access. So, we had that platform to have a comprehensive story on each student that we discussed. We
expanded ruler implementation um adding in the mark um bullying lessons into the already standing ruler curriculum to be sure that we were supporting that. Um we developed systems to track and analyze office visits. We increased monitoring
of attendance in student subgroups and formed a team to develop classroom regulation stations connected to what uh Dr. Slaney was talking about with executive skills. We're aligned in that and we're looking to find similar resources. So students who come from Placentino to Miller will have access to
the same things in that learning space in addition to using those also in our unified arts classes. So those classes will also have that. Um and uh we also are um we lost my place there. Revising
our behavior response continu continuum. So thinking about the proactive side of supporting all students in that foundation, but then also how do we support students when they are showing different behaviors and how can we be consistent and empower staff and admin and have be on the same page. We also
partnered with the Holl Police Department to provide a cyber safety assembly for grade 5 students after noticing a lot of usage um from them and also sent some resources out to families after that. In terms of outcomes, we maintained chronic absenteeism below our
school target, ending the year, well, almost ending the year at approximately 5.9% um overall at Miller School, and the state set a target for us this year of 6.9. Um so, we're really want to celebrate that, but we don't want to lose sight of subgroups. We've been
monitoring the ones that we were most concerned about from last year. Um and students with disabilities are currently at 9.9%. um the target the state the state set for us this year is 12.9. So we're also below uh the target which is actually a
good thing. Um but the air the subgroup that we are not achieving our target in right now as we're monitoring it is multilingual learners. Um we are currently at 11.4. Um and the target the state has set for us is nine. So we're
above that. Um while subgroup attendance remains an area of focus, these rates reflect the impact of our ongoing attendance monitoring and intervention efforts. Uh next year we will utilize end-of-ear data from the tiered fidelity inventory that's scheduled to take place next week um to guide improvement
efforts for care and ruler um implement those regulation stations mentioned in every classroom. We'll finalize and roll out an updated behavior support system and continue strengthening attendance and executive functioning supports along with collaborating with the across the
district to implement a new social emotional learning screener. So there's been a team working on that right now. Um as we move on to teaching and learning, our goal for was for 80% of our students to meet or exceed their growth targets in literacy and mathematics. We talk a lot about
students being on grade level or above above and that's important, but we also want to make sure with a growth measure that every student is growing. Um, and so that's why we honed in on that percentage. We chose 80% because last year our average was 60% and we wanted
to increase um the percentage in there. In addition, we wanted to focus onformational text writing and numbers and operations because those were areas that required um that were the lowest performing for us both on MCCAST and on I Ready from last year. Throughout the
year, we continued implementation of Eureka Math Squared. We conducted district and grade level learning walks. We analyzed student growth and subgroup data through our student success team and grade leader structures. We implemented targeted intervention cycles, advanced district curriculum accommodation plan revisions, and
piloted and selected a new literacy curriculum resource. As Dr. Slaney mentioned, CKLA, our end of year data um shows encouraging progress. Uh in reading, we have 71.9% of our students on or above grade level. Again, that's
just their placement. Um and we have 35.4% of our students with disabilities on or above grade level. So, we're paying close attention to students that are on IEPs because we recognize that there's a need for that and there's work we need to do there. Um, additionally,
66% of students overall achieved their typical growth, remembering our goal was 80. 66% achieved it um or or greater and 61% of our students with disabilities achieved their typical growth or greater. We also saw improvements
informational text comprehension and one which is one of our targeted focus areas. In mathematics, 74.6% of our students are on or above grade level at the end of the year and 39.7% of students with disabilities are on or
above grade level. Um, and 56% of students achieve their typical growth in mathematics. So remembering 80% was our goal, knowing that about 60 was our was what we achieved last year. and 40% of students with disabilities achieved their typical
or growth extended growth goal. Um so really what that's telling us and what you'll hear about in next steps is that we have work to do around how we're our rigorous instruction, our curricular resources, um our instructional strategies. Um we
have work to do on that and it's not a reflection on an individual student. It's it's unpacking a problem and figuring out in a thoughtful way how we're going to move this forward. Although we do did not reach our 80% goal, the data and learning walks provided valuable information about
where we need to focus next. So next year we're going to prioritize student discourse across the school um for the first half of the year helping students learn how to have academic conversations and making that be consistent across settings. And then the second half of
the year, we're going to focus on productive struggle. So that will bring the rigor in once they're knowing how to have those conversations. Now we're going to help them through the feelings that we have in learning and getting through tough things. Um we're also and those will be connected to um consistent
instructional routines. Um, we'll continue our data wise work to strengthen instructional decision-making, thoughtfully schedule and align our grade leader curriculum and staff meetings to support the implementation of the new ELA curriculum, and adjust our assessment calendar to increase opportunities for
progress monitoring throughout the year. Um, along with gaining access for all staff to that open architect platform for um the data story for all students. And finally, in arch four, um our goal was to increase clarity of schoolwide systems and strengthen collaborative
planning. This year, we expanded our grade leader leadership structure and sharpened its instructional focus. We aligned educator goals to tier one instructional priorities, participated in district-wide data wise coaching and professional learning, increased staff
voice through surveys and collaborative planning structures, and use learning walks um data to guide professional development. We also developed clearer systems for our student success team meetings and data review sessions. We continue to work through the challenges
with scheduling PLC meetings to extend curriculum meeting content and address grade level needs. Next year, we will expand the student success team meeting to include regularly scheduled data reviews. We'll use our climate survey data to strengthen systems and culture.
We'll continue to de develop our grade leaders as instructional leaders and create a school level datawise implementation plan and focus professional learning on literacy, executive functioning, and instructional moves. Thanks for holding in for the last
school. I know that was a lot to digest. Um there was a lot of great things happening. There were a lot of great things happening districtwide. there are areas of improvement and um over the summer the administrators will use their data to inform their decision- making
and goals for next year but you can already see it shaping up as to what district-wide we're kind of focusing on a lot of the same things especially that tier one support system >> I have a question um so listening to the science presentation and then um the
presentations that you provided and this is really more a question for elementary middle because I think you might get to this in the ask uh presentation, but it sounds like I'm hearing there's a instructional shift for next year. As you um introduce literacy or science uh
curriculum, the instructional planning time that teachers have will be moved away from developing, finding or vetting um resources to really understanding this new tool and using their instructional time to um address the
student learning needs. and plan for that. So thinking about that for next year, what supports do your teachers need to kind of make that shift and who's going to support them? >> Yeah. So for us, we've actually we just had a meeting today. Was that today? >> Yes, it was.
>> Today this morning, um we really are talking about a plan for professional development. And when we look at professional development, we're not just talking about those four days, right? So, um, Bren and I have been working a lot with our, um, um, Caitlyn Kinsley
and Jen Jenny man around how do we utilize all of the available time for us, right? So, we've been talking about our PD days. We've been talking about our staff meetings. We've been talking about curriculum meetings. We've been
talking about how do we carve out time within our contractual obligations for um our our literacy um our our humanities coaching to work with our educators to coach. We also started this
year with um some pilot teachers um and half of those are our great leaders as well. So they have embedded leadership roles as well. We we like those early adopters who've had some um experiences because colleague to colleague they can share some of the experiences they've
had. But what we're really looking at is not looking at as like a whole chunk of a year but small bites of the apple. Right? So today we talked about what that first professional development looks like. And I think um I think the idea of like lesson internalization came up and I was like
>> learning how to Yeah. and they need to know what materials are in front of them, right? So, we need to think about um the psyche of the educator too and taking on such a new task. So, what we're doing is we're mapping that out much like Brenda was talking about around um um having kids have academic
conversations the first half of the year of productive struggle. We're looking at it through an educator PD of what are the different levels that they need to go to. Also knowing that this roll out isn't going to all happen in one year. Yes. Um, we're we're talking about
integrity versus fidelity. And we think that's an important term that we need to be able to um these are curated product products because of the way they're designed. So, we need to have integrity by using it, but um having teachers be
able to know what our goal is the first year with it and then what our goal is the second year, what our goal is the third year. we had some lessons learned from the implementation of Eureka Math Squared and those are the things that we're doing. So, we're looking at scaffolding their learning as they roll
this out and looking at the supports that we can build in throughout every aspects of their day. And I would just add that in addition um in this for the past since it was approved to purchase these items, we had some kits available and our literacy team invited grade
level teams to come and preview and give them an overview and hear about what their questions were and get in their concerns and that will be woven into the experience. So the voice of even if they're not ready to digest the content, they have an overview of that and are
able to contribute to what the next steps are. Um, and the summer work for our literacy team was dedicated to unpacking this and creating a draft scope and sequence so that people have something they can walk in and utilize when the year starts.
>> We're doing something similar. Last year we um spent our summer work, a lot of folks kind of our teacher leaders and our um curriculum leaders got together and we mapped out what we wanted the year to look like. And so what we were
focusing on um at that point was a lot of our SEAL lessons, some of our executive function things this coming year. And this it it weaves into every lesson, it weaves into every roll out is those empty those tier one strategies.
Um, and we can dig into that at another, you know, at another point if you have questions. But when we're looking at what kids need to be able to access and teachers need to be able to plan for, we have a weekly curriculum meeting where we design all those professional learning experiences, pull that through,
and then next year when teachers write their goals, they'll make their professional goals hopefully around those um tier one strategies which support all of the um subject areas and all of the things that they're teaching in their classroom. So we sort of have
that part mapped out in terms of their meetings during the day. We don't they they set their own um we understand that that's what they do. They they set their own schedule. We guide that work through our um professional development time. So
curriculum Tuesdays, professional development days, um town hall faculty meetings. So all of that work is pulled through and then they sort of run with it with their team leaders in the sessions that they have um daily.
>> All right. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> You got one to stay. >> It's always they're always the lagger. one click on this one here that will help. >> Yes. And and Don did suggest we will move up the old business topic for for
you to cover as well. >> That's fine. Yeah. Talk about that actually in this as well. So there'll be a lot of sort of a lot of the information they talked about will um uh surface here. Um and so I just felt as though I you know went through sort of the the high level on the um on the end
of here and then sort of dig a little deeper here because this is uh this really is a deep dive into the school. So um it gives you a really good look. So just for those new on the committee who may not know what NIASK is uh so NIA is the accreditation organization um for
um for for high schools and um it's a process that is a 10-year cycle um and so we are at the end of our cycle um the dennial visit they visited my first year here was the the seven-year visit um and
um prior to that visit I'm sorry working backwards prior to that visit in your Next year, you write a report about your school. Uh, everything's self-reported. Then they come in and and do a collaborative conference visit. Um, and then at year three from the goals from the previous, you send them a report
about what you've done. Um, and then so now we're back at the start of the cycle. So, um, and as that happens, things change at NEASK. Their expectations change um, just as education changes and develops throughout. So, um, that's that's that process. and we have our denial report.
Um there are five standards that the ask looks at. Um in the next slide you can see it's learning culture uh student learning professional practices learning support and learning resources. Uh the eight educa eight visiting um educators uh came in and they do three days of
observations and interviews. They uh meet with students, meet with staff, meet with central office, uh meet with admin, um school counseling, they meet with everybody in the building. Um, and then they also just go around the building and h pop into classrooms and
and see what's happening and and observe what's happening throughout the building. Next slide. Um, so these are the five standards. Um, the first one, learning culture and safe environment. Um, based on the
collaborative conference visit and and the year6 report and the denial visit, um, we met all the requirements there. Not much has changed in that over the years in terms of what NEAS is looking for. Um there um you know what what they're looking for is it is it inclusive? Is it safe? Is there student
voice and choice and opportunity there? Um the learning culture, core values, vision of graduate, we have a wonderful vision of the graduate. Um you know the school's core values, the student experience again we we met there. Um written curriculum. Um the we did not
meet three years ago and um we did not meet um this past year. Uh that's because it is a long process to to go through all these curriculum maps and rewrite all of them. The new NEAS standard is for curriculum maps the UBD curriculum maps through all the stages.
So we are just starting in that process especially with the new schedule. Um so it's impossible to actually for us to to meet that fully. Um what we do have to show is that we're working through it. Um in order to keep accreditation, we have to show that we're working on it
because we're, you know, we, as I said, we just started in that area. Um professional practices and improvement plans. Um again, we met there showing that the school is continually looking to improve, looking at professional practices, looking at um how we can uh
improve instruction. Um we met both at the collaborative conference and the dennial visit. um the student interventions. Um this one originally said that it met and it met the old standards. Um it does not meet the new standards of having a full bore MTSS uh
system. Um we don't have something that covers all three tiers right now. We are building that out. Um and so what NIASK is is telling us is that we have work to do on building that those intervention structures out. Um and then um five
those learning resources uh facilities that's our building. So we did didn't meet there. Uh but then that's again we won't meet there until we have a new building. So um anyway so um the NAS commendations the next slide. Um so what
we are great at what our staff is amazing at is building those relationships with students. Um that is something we do really well. Um and uh you know leveraging that to um you know really create rigor for our students is important um and that we that we see
throughout our building. um the developing of the vision of the graduate. Um we meet there and also what a lot of the work we did this year with vision of the graduate is implementing that in connecting it to our curriculum. Um so that students then start to understand how what they're learning
actually impacts them and and is um aligned with the vision of the graduate. Um so that work was done this year. Um we're making progress on those curriculum maps. Um but we're we're not obviously um there yet. Um and obviously
there's the uh facility uh the building piece that um is the with the uh uh the process starting. Um we do have consistent dedicated time for professional development, professional collaboration. That's what MIAS is looking for overall. Do we have that
built into our structures? Um student voice and choice and feedback opportunities. uh the the technology being integrated in um and uh one of our recommendations was about communication and transparent decision- making um and so they saw um improvement there. So it
became went from a recommendation to accommodation um for the for the school um the areas of need the priority areas. So that written curriculum that 2.2A 2A in the next page. Um so again this is where we are across with all departments
the maps. Um so the mapping process just so you're aware and then how that impacts the instructional uh what's happening in the classroom with instruction. So the first step in this is the UED stage one. That's really our scope and sequence our essential questions our units right that's what um
and again that's being focused on because that's being built out first um as we shift to a new schedule. we have our classes that are moving from half year to full year. So really having to look at that at that 50,000 foot view and then that's where we're also connecting it to the vision of the graduate. Um and this year within that
also what was asked of teachers and this is going back to Hillary what you asked before about the instructional strategy piece. So that we also built in um we had some PD with it and with the new decap is building in those um tier one supports those classroom supports into
the actual maps and into what what teachers are using to support students. So that's really the goal with really development of those um and sort of sort of it's it's like a a a hybrid I guess of like the old school lesson plans and the overarching view of what's happening. So when our teachers come in
and we have, you know, lots of new teachers who, you know, have only been in the district for under 5 years, they really understand what our values are, what we are looking for instruction, how we support students, um, and have all of that mapping in front of them at stage one and then you start building it out to stage two and then eventually to
stage three. Um, and that takes time. Uh, the second area of need is that student intervention. So we do have supports, right? It's not saying we don't have supports. and saying that right now we don't have a a process a full MTSS process um and so therefore we
can't meet um in this area. So uh what they highlight here is we have our our SAT team where we talk to students. We have DSB where students can get supports. We have we have specific programs for students. Um but that formal data driven
piece um is really what we need to build out. Um and that's what why we didn't meet in that area. Um and that's work we have to do. Um and we have to be able to align all of our data. Like right now we have the LL and the PSAT and MCCAST and
SATs and student grades and assessments and all that. And so we need to find ways to align that um and understand what it's telling us. So as an admin team this summer and with Dr. call it going to datawise. We're really looking to begin building out that the first parts of that structure because really
when we get to year three of this and we have to send our report to NEAS, we should be able to show the we have to be able to show the progress that we've made um on each of on each of these. Um and then there's the facilities which I we all know.
Um so going a little bit deeper in these priority areas I talked about a little bit. So the curriculum development piece. So again looking at um how we build build out that mapping um the stage one the enduring understanding essential questions that's all started.
We've had that work being done this year um and based on um the theou and based on and based on the new schedule the teachers will have time throughout PD um next year to continue working on their curriculum work on um that schedule
shift. the schedule shift is big. Um, you know, it's it's it's not just big in terms of the the structures. It's big psychologically. It's it's a we have we have teachers in our building who went to high school here, went to college, and then came back and taught here. So, this is all a lot of them know, you
know, we have teachers who who are retiring, you know, after 33 years. The teacher have taught their entire career in this schedule. So, you know, we we need to give space for um the the staff to sort of wrap their heads around that and the students as well uh to wrap their heads around that. So, this
curriculum development piece um we will continue working on with the curriculum um reviews and the mapping, but hopefully that time that's that teachers are given over the course of this year will help sort of um make the transition a little bit easier um with the new
schedule. Um the next slide um talks about again the MTSS. Um so just in terms of the supports I talked a little bit about we have SAT um where teachers um can uh recommend students um to bring up to a
student support team. Um we have the directed study block. Um we brought in a new uh system this year. Uh this year it didn't work um as well as we thought it would. And so now we're going to be uh we're piloting right now which I think that the students actually talked about
you know a couple hours ago uh when they did the student report um they talked about the new system that we brought in for for DSB to help for students sign up for tracking students where they're going um and making and and one of our goals there is making sure that students are signing up for spaces where they need help because sometimes they can
just sign up for who they want to hang out with. Um and so really using um this new program to help support uh students going to where they need need actual supports during DSP. Um we have um as I said the connection program, the adjustment counselors, those are all
things that NEAST are looking for. Um and really again those next steps are a formal data-driven process. Um and and with this new schedule hopefully aligning more um intervention blocks, DSB has freed up a little bit more for students. Um, and that progress monitoring system that you heard a lot
about at the other schools, we need to catch up on at the high school. Um, and so we we going to start building that process out. Um, and again, Dr. Ko with that data data wise training is is helping us to to build that there. Um, and then the next piece there is the
facilities which I don't think we need to spend much time on. Um, the final piece that NES looks at looks at are the four C's. um conceptual understanding, commitment, competency and capacity. Um and so those are uh
written again you have in the report you can read everything out in detail. Um but really what this is looking at is um do they does everybody have an understanding of what what our values are, what our vision of the graduate is, um what skill development is, what
frameworks need to be in place, um what exists in the overall daily instruction and experience in the building. that's when they're walking through having those random dropins in the classroom. Um and so um you know that we talked about how um that's going really well at
our school. Um it also gave us a lot of accommodations and on the commitment side um in terms of in terms of our teaching staff uh in terms of our relationship building um and in terms of knowing knowing what we need to work on uh that that came into there. So
understanding our our own reflection as a school. Um again then the competency we also got commendations on in terms of our instructional talent, our teachers um and our investment into the professional learning um for the staff um and building capacity. Uh but it did
talk about how we do need more sustained PD um in those tier one instructional supports um at the at the high school level. Uh and then capacity. Um and then it talked about again this a lot has to do with our schedule about the fragmented time because of the schedule
um that we need to create um more structured time for collaboration um and hopefully the new schedule helps us to consolidate and focus that um more easily across the building. So with um what they also what they
talked about here and again this was a recommendation was the new schedule from NEAS um we have that moving forward um a curriculum audit closing gaps um both in curriculum um and in our students when you look at our data and I've talked about this before um especially our
students with a disability lag behind those without a disability and so we have to close that gap um building that uh MTSS framework and having clear data points and data systems um the MSBA process um and really then the focus of um of you know keeping up
uh positivity through the transition um and supporting students and staff through that. So >> happy to answer any questions. >> You said it was LinkedIn. >> It's LinkedIn. Yeah. right in that first uh the first slide >> in terms of the learning support and the
and the doesn't meet the standard on the learning support and it says lacks a cohesive proactive data informed system and tiered interventions. >> How does the data dashboard come into play on that? Right? Because that was kind of a big investment and and and something to sort of push forward like
what are we missing in that that they didn't find? So it's so we have high school tends to have a lot of random data points. >> Um and so >> we have we have to build out aligning each of the data points because we have likel
and for math and ELA we have grades you know and then we have and we need to get down into the assessment level piece because right now what we look at is you know the student has an A for the term but what does that actually mean or a B for the term we have to understand what that means. um what is you know we have
we we have data for like PSAT which is 10th grade we have MCCAST which is 10th grade but it's it's we have to connect all of that now um you know at the elementary level when they're looking at you know and they have their teams right you have your third grade team you know they're meeting together talking about
each of those data points where we have an English a math a science a social studies a world language a wellness you know fine performing arts um on these different islands and so we need to bring that together to understand all understand our data connect it together to then build out those supports. Um so
it's not that open arch doesn't give us the data we now need to um make it work together to then help support students. Um, and one of the parts that we struggled with was timing, right? Like so you uh I talked about this before a lot with the schedule was that by the
time you recognize the student need within our schedule, it's like your first your the equivalent of your like first semester is done. Um, you know, cuz you know, you look at the first few weeks of a school year, then you you know, and it's it's November and it's like, okay, you're halfway through and
then you might want to build an intervention and then they end in January. So hopefully that this this the sustained time frame of the full year allows us to look at the data more carefully identify students build out the supports
see what those supports are doing and and then being able to tell at the end what what the impact was. So that's really so we have data we just have to use it better. >> Do you feel like we have all the data >> because you mentioned >> enough I don't that's what I was saying
is like so like we have like like we the benchmarking piece like so like you you get an A in science >> Y >> but like there are assessments that exist >> throughout there that should give us information so we have to start pulling out some of that data um at that level
like we have the overarching like grade but um we need to look at what is it but that benchmark piece that Susie just talked about like understand where our students come in where they are where their growth is and then support them through that >> that's stitching right so I guess The question I had was do we have all the do
we feel like we have all the individual data points and the next step is stitching them or we're missing data points that >> so we have to so there's an in between there so like >> our teachers have assessments >> so now we have to look at pull out the standards from those assessments f take
out that data point then stitch >> okay >> so the so we have the assessments we have those pieces so right when you come in in nth grade the English department will assess your writing >> y >> I'll do it across the board nth grade, >> we need to actually pull out those standards, look where those kids are,
pull out that benchmark data, >> and then stitch that together with all the other pieces that we have. Um, and so that's the work that we have to we we have to do as an admin team first to pull that out. Um, and really pull out what each department has >> and then stitch it together with the
information that we have through like open architects. >> That that's really why there is a sense of urgency for this. It's been a long time coming, but the limitations that have been in there for so in so long have really hindered our ability to push some of these things forward. And that is next year is the opportunity to have
that push. Um, but as you know, we did not um keep those two positions at the high school for next year because the at this at this point we weren't able to get the ability to use them in the way we should have been able to as we have in all the other buildings. That model is working excellent. PreK to 8. um
you've you've heard all the data moving along but the model has really had so many limitations. So my recommendation as I said um earlier in the year is that my hope would be that next year after you roll out the schedule and get some um some of the anxiety down hopefully the following year making that as another priority need to bring back
because you do need to build those supports and you do need to have people to do those that work. I've been on to um ask through my own career and um what new information do they bring because I know from the inside it was a lesson of
frustration a lot of all this gathering and lots of meetings and the time that teachers and staff put into it and the cost that the district pays to it and then I hear all of the um recommendations that are put out. We know all those things. So
what benefit are we getting as a district to pay that amount of money for the is it just to say we're accredited? I know there are other schools in district in the state that have said we don't need that. It's not worth it. >> Yeah. A few a few have pulled out of it. I think for us what what is really helpful is it it is really structured
reflection time in in in set areas that we Yes. Do we know we need it? Yes. And then it helps us dive down more deeply into it. I actually more than the visits themselves. I actually really value that the the process of of us gathering our information to then share with them
because that requires us to actually look at our entire building, reflect, have those conversations, build committees up to then gather all that data. Um, so as much as the visits might can can seem, you know, like it's just
sort of they're walking through looking and they know this stuff, I actually really value the the process of the reflection piece of it. So could you hire a consultant to do the same? Sure, I guess you could. It would cost, you know, money to to do that. And could you take their process and do the same?
Yeah. I mean, the other piece they do is like they also evolve too. So like as I said like the the really some of the language around NPSS some of the written curriculum language that's shifted. Um but yeah I mean I've never really actually never worried about the accreditation piece. I just really like
value the the as a building leader especially being able to sit with other educators other leaders to be able to see like let's really reflect on our building and hear from staff and students and families and the district level positions to really see um what the building needs. And I would also say
that it was helpful to our process in the MSBA process to be able to say that we didn't meet in 5.1 or whatever because you know of you know in we're sitting in that meeting and and talking about our needs that that's a helpful piece of an outside group coming and
being like this doesn't meet the needs of our students um and we need a new building. >> And I I will say Tracy yes you're right many teachers and administrators have identified this and seen this. I mean, I've been there six years. These are not new things. It's been a problem for a
long time. Um, I think we also do need to have everybody's eyes wide open because we've been really meeting some resistance to some of this work and we really, this is real evidence to say we're we're falling behind and we can't just blame it on the facilities and we
can't just blame it on the schedule. There's some hard work that has to happen and we all have to dig in and do it. So, I mean, it's a combination of those things. >> And again, the process is done. I mean I don't have you ever done at the school like sat on the committees in the school or you went on >> Oh yes like I've done this is my second
time here like I did there like I those committees if like when I've been a part of them have been really fruitful conversations for at least for me in terms of working out with staff and with students and families and really understanding um what the experience is
is sort of a deeper level but I mean it's for me it's never been about like the accreditation actual piece of it. In terms of the student learning part and the curriculum documents, do we have do we have any indicators like what percentage are complete, what we have to
work on and then how do we get there? >> So yeah, so we have I mean so like we gave time this year for staff to work throughout the scope and sequence of everything um to because they had to shift. Right. The documents were done for stage one, but now they needed to
shift them because like the units of what they're covering like our social studies department had to add more work because they now have more time um and they have time to look at it. So we also worked on connecting it to the the vision of the graduate piece. So, um,
next year's the staff has time. And so, um, really for us, it's really we're we're stage one for for most of almost all is done. Um, they just did a shift this year in in how that's structured. Um, and then you would go into stage
two, which is a lot of the assessment piece. Um, the projects that the students be working on. Um, and then again, how that's connected vision of the graduate and you build that piece out. Um, but that's the next step for us. And again like other um I think that was done at the other levels mostly
already um and high school has been a little bit behind um in that um but we had to we were working on stage two but then we went back to stage one because of the shift in the schedule and the change so it's kind of starting over there um in terms of the need to do it
is that's the that's what you know we used our PD time this year um to give teachers the opportunity to build that out um and then again there's time next year as well um to build out. Um, >> and it's hard when you're changing to a new schedule. It It's hard to do that in
the summer, like to be honest with you, as you as you're mapping your work with as a teacher and you're changing your pacing and all of that. You really need to do that as you go because they haven't lived this schedule yet. So, in a perfect world, yes. Well, let's come in in the summer and just get it all. But it doesn't really work that simply
because you have to live that schedule and make those changes as you go. So you can do all this work and spend all this time and money and then you still have to redo it as you go because that's just I mean those of us that have been teachers for long that's that's how it works. You have to shift and mold and
repace and readjust each year as well. >> Awesome. Do you want to continue the conversation on the schedule change or >> so? Oh yeah, I mean just in terms of the schedule piece itself. So um right now um the the schedule back end is built um
right now counselors are meeting with students um because this is the time when you go through like oh that kid is missing English class so you can start to fill fill holes or oh that student now has seven AP classes. Are we sure that's what you really want to do? um you know and you need to fit a wellness
in there. So um right now they're call they're meeting with students um trying to just you know do those those fixes um or in a good place um are we'll be sending out um uh like schedules to teachers, you know,
make sure that what what you know right now what everybody is teaching. Um so we'll send that out next week. Um and you know I it's uh looking um right now um you know they also spend time doing all the balancing of classes because as
you build it you know the scheduleuler throws things in different places and so you look at balance um and there's a lot of work being done by the counselors um making sure that students are getting what they like especially our juniors and seniors are getting what they wanted
to get or complete because the schedule shift had some impact there. Um we were able to create um new classes to support students in the in the schedule. Um like students who wanted to get to calculus but couldn't get to calculus because of the new schedule. We were able to create
a course um for students to get them what they need in order to then take calculus in senior year. Um and and so and so it's it's going really well process. Do you have specific questions about it
or >> not at this time? >> Thank you, Mr. Liz. >> All right. >> Thank you. >> All right. On to Should we go back to the out district coordinator so we don't forget about that or you want to Okay, sounds good.
>> Sounds good. All right, we'll pivot to the out of district coordinator position. So, um, our returning Jess, assistant superintendent of student services has worked on this and then, um, some of us made changes or and
it's recommended as Well, so um we feel it's the right balance for this position. As you know, it's for next year it's 8.5 out of district administrator to do this work and it would be under the Huey contract with the um other administrators, the SSA's
assistant principles and director of athletics. Do a motion to approve the out of district um curriculum um coordinator position a job description. >> Second
>> and when will this get posted? may have already been posted just as a you know we had to get that up there and then we would have adapted if it wasn't voting officially. >> Okay. >> All right to the uh central office updates.
>> So I'd like to make a hopefully a brief statement. I don't want to be too longwinded. It's a very long night here. But I did want to say um I wanted to take a moment to at my final school meeting to say a heartfelt farewell to the many amazing administrators, staff,
and community members I have had the privilege to work with in Hollist these past six years. On a good day, the job of a superintendent in public education is incredibly challenging and at times isolating. However, I have always grounded myself
in my way, my why, the children, and the community I serve. Recently, I received a note from an amazing student that brought tears to my eyes and reminded me of that purpose. They wrote, I don't want to tear up, but it was very
heartfelt. Congratulations on a very well-earned retirement. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. Pollston has been the perfect place for me to grow as a student, leader, and human being. I have your support and care to thank for that. I'm enormously grateful for all
you have done for me and this town. I am just one of the many countless lives you have impacted throughout your great career. I think the more removed you become um as you go up the ranks and you're not in the classroom the same way, you forget that you still impact students. So, I I like those reminders. So when I arrived in Hollist,
I thought navigating a global pandemic would be our greatest obstacle. While those years were uniquely challenging, the true test of leadership came later. Good school districts thrive when people work together for the good of the whole.
Success relies on a collaborative triangle, union leadership, the school committee, and the administration. While we may not always agree, things do not improve when when that triangle is broken. Despite ongoing resistance, I'm
incredibly proud of what the leadership team, our staff, and I have accomplished together over the last six years. To name a few, tuitionfree full day kindergarten. We used a 4-year plan with ARS SR Opera and other funds to get this program in
place. There was inequity there that was addressed. the five-year strategic plan. You heard about that tonight. We collaborated with community stakeholders to build a targeted plan directly tied to our budget and and our professional development. And it's a living, breathing document. Curriculum
reconfiguration empowered educators in every building to reinvent our curriculum review process and implement high quality align resources. You heard about that again tonight. And there was a huge break from 2015 until having this process re-imagined and and reconfigured.
School start time alignment. That was a huge one. We forged ahead with elementary principles to align start times for Miller and Placentino, ensuring student safety and family convenience despite initial public resistance and open criticism from some
school commandments as well. the Hollison High School building project. I personally authored five statements of interest to secure a new high school. While I won't be here for the groundbreaking, I'm thrilled for this. What this means for the students,
teacher contracts, and funding. Many of us advocated, including myself, through a successful town override process to ensure our our educators received a rigorous contract and the structural support they deserve. And obviously, time on learning was increased for all of our students. So, that's a benefit to everyone.
Over the last three years, I have witnessed a shift where administrative leadership has been systematically pushed out of that triangle and prevented from meeting. Leading with dignity and pride becomes exponentially harder when difficult student centered
decisions regarding equity are met in in some cases with public denigration, hostile communication, and disperate treatment by a few school community members. This environment is driving good people away from the district and it is a culture that must change if
Hollist is to sustain its success. Despite everything, I did not ever give up on this district and I never stop fighting for our students because they are the reason that we and certainly I come to work every day.
My parting wish for the incoming leadership team is that they are granted the respect, trust, and structural support they need to succeed. I hope this community will recommmit to the triangle of leadership, making Hollist public schools a proud,
collaborative place to lead once again. Thank you, and I wish you all the very best. >> Thank you, Susan. Um, one, I just wanted to thank uh Mr. Kim. Uh, I want to I'm excited for his retirement, but also just his ability to
kind of join the the school committee. I think it's he's going to be uh an important person uh just to kind of provide some guidance next year and this year of kind of transition especially as we go into kind of contract negotiations um and uh some of the changes in
different positions that exist in the leadership that we have. Uh the we the town and a couple members that were here were part of the MSBA's eligibility kickoff uh which was earlier this week. So, we're excited about kind of starting
that process. Uh, and we did hear from some potential members that we had as well. So, that's exciting. Um, as well, I am plugged into the midst of the FY26 closeout uh procedure. So, right now, we're kind of on a pause of like new POS
purchase orders that are coming in just so we can kind of balance the FY26 budget uh and see where we lie. Uh we are which was our most recent budget subcommittee meeting just kind of demonstrating that our budget's a good spot. We don't have we aren't going to
have any issues with closing our FY26. Uh we we ran a pretty conservative year and we're structured to run a pretty conservative FY27 uh school year as well. Um thank you to the middle school. I'm going to miss the community service
day uh and that that process and how how that's evolved uh over the years um and what that that will be. So, I'm super excited. But again, um to the the community of Hollist, I've been incredibly grateful for the last 13
years of my time here. Um to Dawn, the the longest standing of the of the school committee that I've been here, I think my longest stretch with how long is it has it been? I'm going into my eighth year. >> Yes. So, a long a long stretch uh for
us. So, I'm um you know, grateful to the school committee, grateful to the town, uh grateful to the administrators, teachers, and the community. I I think we've done a wonderful job uh raising some very wonderful children uh that are here in this community. Uh one of the
things that I'm most proud about are less about the accomplishments uh and different titles and different things that I've been a part of. Uh it's more just watching the journey of, you know, the sixth grader that comes into our building. Uh and the adult that comes
after. Uh and I I've been uh very grateful at the graduation and seeing some of those not just gradu uh those who graduated on Sunday, but uh those past graduates as well. Um, and so that's a very proud moment. Sometimes I'm out and about in the world and run
into uh somebody that has no idea uh about anything. I indicate that, you know, I work in the house in the town of Hollist and I go, "Oh, I know a kid that I went to college with and they tell me some story about how wonderful of a human being that is." So, uh, you have a
wonderful community. Uh, I will miss it dearly. Thank you, >> Dr. Dr. Pat. I don't have a lot of history so I have very short items. I have some technical items we need to talk about.
Uh one is I just wanted to do an update and I know Dr. Kuska sent you an email earlier and before the meeting about the data breach we've had this week in the department. Uh we've been working feverishly
to investigate what's going on. We uh are doing some of the repair work. I fielded questions all day from parents. I'm also very very grateful to Algra Danahe from uh CPAC who has been very very helpful in this process in working
with some of our parents as well. And so, uh, you have learned that we had a group of parents who did have a set of schedules that went out for the summer ESY that at this point the concern was what
was exposed in terms of confidentiality and we would have let parents know it was the name, a student ID that no one can access, does nothing, and the uh, grade the child's on along with a schedule. the link that went out with
that original email was disabled. So, anybody that didn't open their email prior to it being disabled today cannot do that. I know cuz I checked it to make sure it was disabled afterward. Um, and anybody might have opened it before,
they might have seen something, but they can't do anything with it. And we can confidently say, and I know Mr. Mloud and I worked crazy to hours to make sure that and reassure parents that there is no way
any other information contained in the portal can be released by anybody unless they have shared their password protected information which I don't think any parent in this district probably has done that. So I'm very confident that that information is safe.
But what's the result of that? We really we have to look at our processes and procedures. We have to really put in some stop gaps to make sure it doesn't happen again. We have to finish understanding what happened to begin with and why. And we have to make sure
moving forward that we have some checks and balances in place clearly in order to build the trust of parents and let them know that yes indeed we are protecting their children. We're not. I think the number one question that has come to me that if anybody's listening
was were my children was my child's um as they parents explained it disability exposed and the answer is no. No child's disability was exposed. Not one. It's not contained in any of the documentation. So we want you to know
that you know deeply apologize for the for what happened. certainly wasn't intentional, but we do have some repair work to do and we have some trust to build because even though I'm leaving, I won't be able to do a lot of that repair work. I'm sure that Jess will when she
comes in, it is out there. I would recommend as a result of some of this. This is a perfect segue to say that I really really hope that next year the school committee will invite the CPAC to come and visit one of the meetings and
talk about all the work they do. They are a model group of parents. I've worked with many CPAC groups having been in so many districts. They're a fivestar premier CPAC as far as I'm concerned. We
did have Desessie in last week to do the work that they're doing to see how we're doing. Are we dotting our eyes and crossing our tees? And that was one of the one things I one things I I highlighted with them and said if you need a model of a CPAC to go across the
state to explain how it should function, this is your group. They are such a dedicated pair set of parents that I I really hope you will ask them to come in and meet with you at least once next year, maybe twice because of what they do. They're really part of the
connection. So, um, but as far as the data breach, we know that we'll work forward to make sure it doesn't happen again. Our deepest apologies. No data cannot be released to anybody else. Nobody can access a child's data except for the family unless they've given away
their password. And I doubt that happens. Um, we did have last week, uh, Desi came in, they went through our records, they visited our schools, they interviewed our principles, they interviewed, um,
our interventionists. They were tooured by our SSAs. They got to see a lot of people. There will be some things that they said we will have to work on. That report will not come in until July. I'll obviously be gone. Jess will be
receiving it. They once she does, she'll have five days to review it and look at what's there. She can um you know talk to them whether she disagrees with what's in the content or not. But I won't have access to that report because I'll now be gone. But they were
wonderful. They worked with us. They were very open-minded. And one of the things I most appreciated was that things that might have been missing, they asked us to submit them. So they wouldn't have to give us a little check to work on it. So yes, there will be probably four or five things we'd have
to work on. But I don't think it's anything super serious, but just to let you know how it went. Um, and the group that came in to visit, fabulous group of people. Fabulous group. So that happened. And then as far as just a
final say is to say thank you for letting me come and visit your district for 12 months. It's been an honor. I feel that you have a massive number of dedicated teachers who and and SSAs and principles and so forth who really really want to do a great job and they
do. Everybody is welcoming. Um we have a a fabulous central office. Um I've seen lots and lots of food. I can't imagine why we aren't all out jogging more, but uh I'm grateful that everybody was there for the ride this year and I just want
to say thank you to all of the people that work under me, including PAR professionals. I don't want them to think I have forgotten them as well. That everybody is exceptionally dedicated and you are fortunate to have a staff like this waiting to work with all the children here.
So, but thank you for letting me be a part Dr. Catalo. All right. On to reports from subcommittees. Communications. There is no update
>> other than the communication went out earlier this week. Um >> which was from the whole committee. >> Which is from the whole committee. So >> policy. >> We have not had a meeting since our last meeting. >> Okay. just show.
>> Yes. >> Yes. The advertisement for school um in schools and we need to reschedule our meeting. >> Okay. Budget. >> We have not had a meeting since we need to have anything on the end of the year.
Can uh >> superintendent evaluation. There is no update there. Okay. old business MSBA. Um, lots going on with the MSBA. Um, so
Monday there was a conversation, the selectary conversation. The way we had handled it was there's five appointments that are at large. Um, three of which were for select board to appoint, two of which for school
committee. Um, I believe on Monday, I did not catch the end of the select board meeting. It was a long day. Um there were statements made. Did they select candidates at that point? No. >> No. I believe that they're going to do that the next meeting. Next meeting. Um they'll deliberate and then do a voting
process at the next meeting. >> Okay. Understood. Um and then tonight the goal was and again want to thank all of the uh applicants that put uh their name in and obviously awesome statements and layers of interest. Um, I guess
given the select we're pushing out, but the fact that we don't have a meeting planned, do we tonight feel like we are in a place to deliberate or do we want to table it for a subsequent meeting? Could
be next week. >> I'm comfortable deliberating tonight. >> Okay. So, we will do that. Um, I guess just there's been a lot of feedback on appointments, on how we handle things. Um, so I would like to go go around and
just get a feel for whomever you're comfortable with. Could be one, it could be four. Um, and >> two, >> there's appointments for two, but it's more of who are you leaning towards. Um, >> is there an appointment for a non-
member as well? Yeah. Okay. Yeah. There is also a appointment for well >> school committee will be making a uh recommendation to the select board uh in in terms of Jamie Patone. Um so she
applied as parent educator with MSPA experience was criteria we set forth. However, because she is a town employee, she technically cannot be a voting member. Um but in understanding the value that she could bring from a teachers lens, understanding we may or may not have a teachers lens and
certainly not a teachers lens from our district on the committee. Um we will be taking technically two votes tonight. This could be three with the two appointments and asking select board uh
if the vote passes to appoint Jane Kon as a non- voting member um on the school building committee. So we will table Jamie's vote or with Jamie the non- voting member. Um I I believe after the deliberation we'll just keep that
separate but um in the matter Jamie will not be in consideration for the two appointments. So just keep that in mind. Would it make sense to do genius if you choose to do it first because that might inform our scope or who we might um feel
balances out the team the other two >> Jamie wouldn't be considered in there >> because she's not a voter member. >> So these are the two appointments will be for voting members. >> Yes. So her role will be similar to the statutory roles we have where they'll be
uh on the committee but they will be non- voting members. >> So it's just >> so it's just five names. Uh Janiah, Vanessa, Andrew, >> Lynn, and Maxwell. >> Maxwell. >> But for your point, Don, I'm okay taking
the vote for Jamie Head just to if we want to get that out of the way and then we can deliberate on the two appointees. If someone wants to >> um I make a motion to recommend uh Jamie Canone as a non- voting member to the
school building committee. >> Second. >> Okay. >> Okay. Awesome. Um so I will email Dan tomorrow and Frank or Frank I'll email and let him know. Um so going um going to deliberations on the two appointees
who would like to start. I feel like always Dan gets so I'm the newest member. I feel like I shouldn't >> You can mix it up. >> I actually I'm very I'm comfortable. Um so three candidates really stood out to
me. Um Andrew um I really like his architecture experience. The fact that he's worked on so many MSBA projects already. Um the success of the Watertown High School um being net zero I think was also a real draw for me. Um I also
really liked Vanessa because she does have that educator perspective. Um and she's been through the MSBA process as well through the educator lens. Um and I also really liked uh Lynn. I know we were kind of looking at that 65 plus
group too. She's not quite there but um she I feel like it's close >> by her own admission. >> It's not black or white. It's >> not black or white. Um and just the fact that she does have she's she's had kids
go through the schools here in Hollist. She doesn't have children in the schools necessarily. Now, I really think she could appeal to some of the residents and and the taxpayers who don't have children in the schools. She demonstrated an ability to be able to
reach out and connect with those people. Um, and I really really liked her schools in your homes, your home's value. Um, I thought that would be be beneficial to the uh subcommittee. And just as clarificate, further clarification, our
criteria was parent andor educator. Yes. With MSBA experience, but what didn't get written in there, but it was subliminally implied was past, present, or future. So um Lynn would still be considered given she had um children in
the district. >> What was our second category? >> Uh educator with some MSBA experience was Yeah. Um, I thought I I really liked Linda as a candidate as well. Um, just because
she has been a resident for many years. She's had children through the school district. I thought it was very interesting that she had um grandchildren in the in the district now as well for that perspective. But I think the other part that really spoke to me was in some ways she's been
through this process before. So having um having um been there uh you know 25 plus years ago um with the previous building discussions and then watching the community effort and the dialogue and then the resulting renovation in lie
of um uh replacement I I I think she brings an interesting perspective. Um so I I really um she was one of my top candidates. Um, in addition, I thought um, Andrew was also a very strong candidate. I liked the fact that he had
had the K through2 MSBA experience that he had worked on the Watertown High School and net zero school. I I would love to hear more about that. Um, I I you know, he has that perspective of understanding the funding limits in certain areas. um and having watched
things like this go to completion and getting the community plan in support of it in and again the architectural experience. Um so I think he was probably my second top choice. Um I also was very interested in what
Andrew presented in terms of his experience as you know with all the things that have already been said. Yeah. with the Lam High School, his architectural um design experience. Um it's also a parent perspective. Um Vanessa, her experience as a teacher
with MSBA process and then um I think Shamaya and Lynn I kind of have different ties to the community but really interesting ties like they're both parents of current or former students in Hollist. Um I think Jaya
brings in like the economic development committee. um and some other experience and and ties to groups in this town. Um Lynn as well is tied to a lot of groups in this town. She's done a lot of both of them have done volunteer work in the
in the community. She's a realtor in the community. She's been part of those the renovation conversation. So I'm I'm kind of torn on the two of them. Um just because I think that they both have, you know, deep roots in the committee in community and kind of can reach some
different voices. Um, can I first point out that I'm and I this process is the same as the one we went through last week and um I'm not 100% sure why this one is suddenly okay. Um, and it's I I thought it was fine last week
to be on the second and so uh the fact that we're doing it the exact same way uh frustrates me considering how everything played out um over the past two weeks. With that said, um sorry, I just had to get that out because the the juxtaposition of all that is struggling.
Anyway, I think Andrew um is the top candidate for me. Um I his 20 years as an architect really stood out um particularly with his M direct MSBA experience um having gone through this. So I um that was sort of a clear number one for me. Um I went back and forth
between Vanessa and Lynn as sort of the second person I would um recommend. Uh I do like Lynn's perspective um that sort of covered I think D's book like the 25 years ago when the town did fight against that price tag. Um to be able to
sort of speak directly to that as um a community member at that time and now I think that's important. Um I also did like Vanessa's experience as um someone sort of s making suggestions to a recent MSBA project uh because there are so
often I mean in her example the trash cans was great. I work at school the windows don't open. So like those little things that um people think, oh, this is a great school and then the people that are really living it. Um so those would be my top three. >> Okay, so I'll go last. Um in no priority
order, but I have similar three, I guess, against the others. Um Lynn for me really stood out as well. I think she it's beyond just checking boxes, but her perspective spans many different areas. um she's clearly been involved in the
community but say not as of recent. So having her be more involved I think is an opportunity for others to get involved. And I think as we think about these appointments it's important to think about how do we get more participation. Um and that doesn't discount anyone who has a lot of
participation just how do we think about it a little bit differently. Um the other one was Vanessa as well. I do again I think as much as we could have a teacher mindset and someone who's lived it breathed it as well as a parent and also MSB experience. So again the
concept that she has a lot of boxes there um and she I think will provide um multiple perspectives actually from different angles for the committee. Um and then finally Andrew obviously I think we talked about him a lot um similar things like his background
architecture um and in these in these um processes are important. Um and and just for on the record we did reach out to him uh because there was concern that potentially his firm would apply and bid. Uh he confirmed that was not
happening. So um there's there's no conflict of possible conflict of interest there. Um, but that's the three um that I would support. I know we only have two, but
so Chase, I'm going to infuriate here. I think we'll take both roles separately. I think with the feedback, there's been common threads, I think, among all of us. So, if there's someone that would like to make a motion for the first position,
>> I would make a motion to approve Andrew Kane. Uh I'm sorry if the MSBA uh for the school committee appointee for the MSBA second all in favor >> congratulations Andrew any
do we want to continue should we deliberate the second one now >> that was very clear alignment with Andrew yeah >> I think there's also clear alignment for two other potential candidates. >> If you want to state those, Hillary, sorry.
>> Sorry. I I'm hearing a lot of um interest in having Lynn or Vanessa on for their the experience that they bring to the MSBA process. >> I I think they're both competitive um candidates. I I think I've heard um you
know, it's been helpful to hear your thoughts on on Vanessa. I I do wonder some of her um strengths that she brings to it are also strengths that um Jamie Katon brings, meaning that they both um
worked on a big part of an MSBA uh program before. Um both work in high schools. I think Jamie's is a little bit more fit, well fitted because she's worked at this high school and she has um you know
conversations with the staff here. Um so I'm I'm glad we made that appointment. So I guess for that reason I I lean a little bit towards Lynn because I like that perspective that she's been through this process before and she's sort of gone
she sees sort of the areas where it could have gone better last time and then she has that intergenerational experience too having had children and now also grandchildren in the school. um and gets a lot of feedback from community members being you know through
her position as a real estate agent. So I hear you. My one question would be we need to think about um if the select board does not agree to appoint Jamie as a non- voting member, are we willing to
risk that losing that educator lens? I think we just need to look at those two things. Um did we is there push back from the select board on this issue? Did they >> the select board had uh informed or Ben had informed me at the time. So former
chair um the right process would be us to recommend um but there did not seem to be >> and again they they will have to vote. So it's only what perception I got from our communication um that there was a significant issue. There was
>> there was no significant issue to to appoint her >> because I I I agree with you, Don. I just want to make sure that if they don't decide to move forward with Jamie that we don't rewrite that decision for that. >> So, I'm kind of thinking about this. I
think both Vanessa and Lynn are very strong candidates and um so this is hard, but I'm kind of thinking about this as like the the rest of the makeup of the school building committee. So we have if Jamie is um on there as well as
David list is on there and other Austin public schools representatives there's other non- voting members there on number of town representatives also non- voting and then we have community members um so I feel like kind of thinking about the full representation
I'm leaning more toward Lynn to kind of round out the community perspective Can I make a motion to appoint as our second school committee um recommendation for the MSBA school board? I'll second. >> All in favor?
All right. Um, thank you. Um, I will say for those not selected, the one of the mandates and that's a strong word probably the recommendations in the charge of the school building committee and in theou that will be finalized now
that there's going to be a school building committee in short form um is to partner with the community and other community groups. So, um, a position, not having a position in this school building committee doesn't mean there won't be input from the community. Um,
and it will be the Hillary and I were on the working group. It's like the top charge um of this group, understanding there's going to be a lot of work to be done, 5 to seven years plus. Um but especially through the critical parts of what we decide and how it will be constructed, where it will be
constructed, how much it will cost, the community will absolutely be involved. Um and obviously the community will be voting on a lot of those factors. Um so definitely do not disengage. So involved um there'll be many opportunities to do so.
All right. Awesome. So on to the appointment for assistant superintendent of finance operations. >> Just an update regarding the >> just the update. Yeah. >> Um and I think that that currently the listing closes tomorrow and interviews
um by the screening committee are underway and and and more information to come. >> Okay. All right. To our last section, new business 2026 27 meeting schedule. Do we need to vote to approve it? Um,
have people had a chance to look over at the meeting schedule? I'm also thinking we can vote this, get us in the door for August and and look at it a little harder later on and also look at it in conjunction with the new administrative team. If we have to make some changes, we make changes. But
>> I'm ready to vote if everybody is. >> Yes. >> Can I just ask one question? You know, clarify clarifying question. I know we um talked about voting on um the subcommittee makeup and the liaison um at a later time once we have both
appointees starting in July. Would that be an additional meeting? >> Yeah. >> During the summer so that we would not wait until August. >> We wouldn't wait until August. No, but I feel like get them on board and then we can certainly confirm on scheduling something. Yeah, >> I agree.
>> These are more like the official meetings. what I thought, but I just to make sure I was understanding that correctly. Thank you. >> Yep. >> I'm good with these dates. Um >> I would like to discuss at some point. Um perhaps over the summer maybe having um
limits on presentation lengths and how we can work to sort of streamline some of that process. I mean, it's almost 11:00 at night. We've been at this table for 4 hours. And I, as much as I appreciate all the effort and all the work that goes into all these presentations, I know it's a lot of work on both ends. And so I don't know how we
can maybe open that conversation up as we look at next year, but I think it's a conversation worth having. >> I agree. Yes, >> that is fair. >> Um, so I would make a motion to approve the 2627 meeting schedule as presented. >> Second. >> All in favor.
>> All right. >> Um, so we have we have >> Yes. the update and discussion regarding the school committee appointments and I know we were able to get a communication out post meeting on Monday. Um but I think we still have to
>> um I I would imagine as chair you'll get back to the chair of the select board on another joint meeting and we would want to schedule a meeting um to deliberate and take candidate statements um for the school committee. So just looking ahead
for that week um you know and again because of the number of people who've been interested in it and how small and packed that room was and how many people had to jump in on on Zoom does it make sense to have it on June 25th like we suggested perhaps
June 25th. >> Yep. >> Okay, that works >> for the joint meeting. And then what about um the meeting we'd have in advance? Could we do that June 22nd or 23rd? Yes. >> And that will be just us or
>> I think we can we could certainly invite them. >> Okay. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I'll re I'm going to reach out to Damon after tonight and we'll have a conversation on that. >> Okay. Should we leave it open for the 22nd and 23rd and then uh subject to
discussion with Dana? >> Okay. And the the goal of the 22nd meeting hopefully they're able to attend is to tell basically align I believe on the ground rules the process will take so that we don't go into the 25th and have that conversation. Correct. >> I think we left it open that if we want
to make a recommendation we might make a recommendation of one. We might recommen make recommendations more than one. It really depends on what the candidate pool looks like and we won't have that until >> June 18th. But I think it makes sense to have our meeting um be prepared to deliberate, take candidate statements
and um and and certainly invite them. >> Yeah, I was more covering what Damon brought up that night around >> I think that was in advance of of the meeting like 30 minutes before the regular meeting and that's what I thought >> we were gonna I'll reach out to him. It's more of like
that process the approval voting makes sense if there's a certain candidate pool like if there isn't many then it's not. So I think it all depend on the 18th. I don't think we'll decide until then. But I think we should make that a discussion with select just so that again I think for the candidates that they're clear on how we're going to approach it and again putting it clear
out there like school committee we can nominate someone and that is part of the process. Um so I think uh we'll table I'll let him know we're thinking the 22nd 23rd so it's a premeating and then the 25th for the statements and
deliberation. Okay. >> Are we This is our last meeting before we would be meeting with candidates, correct? >> Um likely. >> Okay. >> Yes. >> Okay. I I never I just want to make
sure. So, are we >> are we going to be calling candidates ahead of time and and are interviewing them as individual school committee members or is that going to be done >> here at the table on the 22nd or 23rd? Yeah. Um I found it really helpful. I
think different people have um it coming up and and reading off of the candidate statement or being interviewed in public. I think I felt like it gave the opportunity if they had questions to ask questions and um to call them ahead
of time. >> I also I mean I asked those same questions again. Y >> um so it was a little bit of of prep. um in advance of of them doing the public interview. But again, that's up to everyone. >> Okay.
>> So, we are within our right to contact. >> Can we just think I'm just thinking about the candidates? I mean, that's a good idea, but I just don't want candidates having to hear from five. >> That's what I'm concerned about too. them. Personally, I would prefer to just have them come read a candidate
statement and then if if we have questions, could we just ask them here at the meeting? >> How do you feel about that as you want to be able to reach out in case they have questions in advance of coming in?
>> Does it make sense to gather our questions that we may have from providing to them ahead of time? No, because we we don't know like I don't think it does because the questions might be based on um their letter of interest and what
they indicate or like their their skills or their background or their I I just I'm not sure I would know the price >> or we would have their letter of interest before we reach out to them because we won't know who they are until the 18th which then we'll have their >> meet on the 18th or the 19th but we
can't meet on the 19th meet on the 22nd. Are you thinking questions that you call each candidate to clarify for us or that we're in we're we're now turning this into an interview, not just a candidate statement? >> Well, I think honestly what worked well Monday and it's important to understand
too we only had three at that point, right? That that were still in contention. If we if we had 12, that doesn't really work out. That format will be here for a while. >> Yeah, >> I did like the format of everyone, including community, hearing their
answers. So, I think to be fair to them, having those questions shared out to them and expected to be asked that night or that day um is the right way to go. >> Could we do something where we send these are the things we want you to touch on in your statement? >> Yeah. >> Yeah.
>> We don't have to it's not an engage, but we know these are the points we want them to. >> So, you're suggesting no questions. >> No, we say these are the things we're worried about ahead or concerned about or want to hear your involvement with. Can you speak to them in your statement? And it they either do or they don't. Okay. Our choice.
>> And would we ask individual questions or everybody gets the same questions to cover? >> I think it can happen similar organically as we go around. You you ask the questions for you repeat the question, but as you saw on Monday,
sometimes they're tailored, right? You have a slightly different for for something. But um >> um yeah, I I I like that idea. >> I like that idea, too. I I think David did a great job to do that. Um you know
you heard where after Tuesday June 2nd's meeting what we were concerned about and he came to the table with that. So I think if we follow a similar outcome providing those ahead of time >> is okay if the candidates reach out to you or the school committee with like a
question like should I expect regular meetings till 11:00? Yes. Try to understand. >> Yeah that they would direct them to me. So, um, when Frank posts, I'll just tell him to they email other Frank. Um, if they have any questions on the position
or whatnot. Yeah. >> So, I'm What have we decided for the 22nd >> questions? Now, Don, I'll need your help here. Could each individual member email me any questions they may have without us having to have a meeting
>> questions to ask? You want to give them pre-anned questions for the the suggestion was >> were you saying you wanted to be able to have a more organic conversation? I and I I agree. I don't think I mean I the way I'm thinking about it is like when
you know we see presentations if we have questions we ask a question and not all of us >> is going to have a question for every single candidate. So, I I I'm not I wouldn't say I'm not in favor of like pre-anned questions, but I I think
there's more of a benefit to having that more organic kind of format. >> Okay. I was hearing two different things. I do believe in sharing with them maybe it's the same we have and obviously it's late at night now but do we share with
them the ideal candidate we're looking for the skills we need or because again that's what we did last time. I >> I think that um at this point they've seen two meetings where we discuss they have >> well way more information than the first
set of candidates. I think we're overthinking that >> and the meeting on the 22nd is just to discuss this process at this point. >> Yes. >> For the right. >> Yeah. >> No, the candidates were coming on the 22nd. >> Okay.
>> Okay. So, I thought in process to get ready for the 25th. >> Yeah. Okay. >> So, the meeting on the 22nd, remember we said it would be a school planning meeting that we could invite select board to. If they wanted to come, they could come, but they didn't have to. So we couldn't possibly decide the process
if we don't have a committee that they would call. Right. I I thought I heard that on the 22nd or 23rd we would bring the candidates in and we give provide a candidate statement and we could do we could we could choose to deliberate or not. We could choose to make a recommendation or not similar to what we
did last time. That's what I thought the 22nd or 23rd was about. Does do people agree with that or you want to do something different? >> No, I agree with that. I just wasn't sure what of what he had to say. >> So do you want me to say on Monday it was in committee it was basically Damon
and future chair >> Mhm. >> school committee talk. I will talk to Damon ahead of time then on process. So for the 202nd 23rd or 25th which now I'm confused what 25th is for. Um but when we have those
conversations with the candidates what they should expect so we can make sure that they are aware before they come in. >> Yes. and what could happen again process is not one two three it's not sequential things can change so >> okay clear on that now um
and the 24th is supposed to be the joint meeting >> yes >> okay >> don't they have the meeting on the 22nd so they couldn't they couldn't join us so it would have to be the 23rd if we wanted to be ours unless we did it the on the 22nd.
Okay. >> Okay. So, June 23rd. Yes. Got it. which is also good. >> We'll be enjoying or we will be um
>> Can I make a motion to adjourn to executive sessions from which >> Yep. Executive sessions to discuss strategy with respect to collective bargaining or litigation at an open meeting may have detrimental effect on the bargain or litigation position of the public body regarding HFT nurses.
Move by John. Second. All in >> favor. All right. >> Thank you, Holl. Good night. >> Your computer. >> Yes.